India is ready to impose a blanket ban, criminalizing the commercial surrogacy through the Surrogacy Bill 2019, a move that will ring a final death warning of the country’s US$2 billion industry.

The inflexible bill under consideration has banned all forms of commercial surrogacy. Women who agree to carry babies to delivery as surrogates must agree to do so for “altruistic” reasons and must be “close relatives” of the recipients. Significantly, it only allows Indian couples who are married for at least five years and childless, to decide for surrogacy.

There are severe criteria for surrogate mothers, genetic parents, fertility clinics, medical professionals, and the egg and sperm donors. Violators can face up to 10 years imprisonment and fines of up to US$14,066.

India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has called this ban “the need of the hour". The apparent aim of this ban is to prevent exploitation of surrogate women at the hands of brokers and clinics.

The bill states: “Due to lack of legislation to regulate surrogacy, the practice of surrogacy has been misused by surrogacy clinics, which can lead to rampant commercial surrogacy and unethical practices.”

In 2002, India hadlegalized commercial surrogacy to promote medical tourism, encouraging a rush from thousands of hopeful would-be parents from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Europe, Canada and Israel to Indian hospitals to select from a bank of surrogate mothers to carry their babies.

A pool of highly qualified doctors and fertility experts with relaxed regulations governing such arrangements boosted the demand. However, the Indian Health Ministry excluded surrogacy for foreigners in 2015.

Affordable rates by hospitals and gestational carriers also played a catalytic role. In the United States, surrogacy can cost US$70,000 to US$150,000 but in India, it ranges from US$20,000 to US$60,000, depending on the clinic and services.

Indian surrogate mothers reportedly earn between US$5,000 to $16,000 per birth depending on the location, birth and terms of contract. This is a fraction of what actually might be offered to their western counterparts.

Each year, an estimated 2,000 foreign babies were born to Indian surrogates, according to the 2014 book Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Ethics, and Law by Harvard law professor I Glenn Cohen. One more study by Sama, a resource group for women and health in India had statedabout 3,000 clinics offer surrogacy services.

Source: CNA