Proxy womb law set for birth - Govt mulls rules to monitor surrogacy & pre-empt custody fights -

The government is thinking of enacting a law to regulate surrogacy in a bid to make the deal struck between the prospective parents and the woman lending her womb legally binding on both sides. Central ministers said the Indian Council of Medical Research had drafted a law to check harassment of either the surrogate or the commissioning parents and to clarify the rights of children born through the arrangement. “Through the law, we also hope to clarify the status of the child once he or she is born. At present, there are frequent custody battles over the child between the commissioning parents and the surrogate,” women and child development minister Renuka Chowdhury said today, after consultations with health experts and junior health minister Panabaka Lakshmi. The draft law prepared by the ICMR — the health ministry’s research wing — will be studied by the women and child development ministry before being forwarded to the Union cabinet, Chowdhury said. The draft — a copy is with The Telegraph — binds commissioning parents to bear all medical expenses, including insurance, of the surrogate mother while she is carrying the child in her womb. The draft also says the surrogate mother may “receive monetary compensation from the couple or individual, as the case may be”, but “shall relinquish all parental rights over the child” once it is handed over to the commi ssioning parents. The ICMR already has guidelines in place to check the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) such as artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and surrogacy. But these guidelines are primarily meant for clinics offering ART treatment, and are not binding under the law. “The move to bring the surrogacy law is at a preliminary stage, and may take over a year to be enacted. But this is the first time that we are addressing the legal aspects of this booming industry,” Chowdhury said. Two forms of surrogacy — referred to as partial and gestational surrogacy — are becoming increasingly popular in urban India, a senior health ministry official said. The former, or partial surrogacy, involves the surrogate bearing her child with the commissioning father — an arrangement usually arrived at when the wife is infertile — with the understanding that the child will be handed over after birth. The latter involves transfer of embryos created from the sperm and the oocyte of the infertile couple to the surrogate mother. The draft law — called the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2008 — says the child’s birth certificate shall bear the names of his or her genetic parents. It says that a woman has to be between 21 and 45 to be a surrogate and free of diseases. No woman, the draft adds, will be allowed to act as a surrogate more than three times, while records of all surrogacy agreements will have to be maintained at the ICMR. The draft law also envisages a regulatory mechanism comprising a registration authority for ART clinics, with state and central advisory boards over it. By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

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