Thursday, August 30, 2012

India’s new lifeline

Mending legal loopholes can make India the pioneer of surrogacy tourism

In a town called Anand, Hansa and her husband worked round the clock to provide themselves with four square meals a day. Hansa works in Kaival Hospital, which has been home to several surrogate mothers. Unable to meet their own and their three-month baby’s needs, Hansa made the decision to lend her womb in return for money. There are many women like Hansa who choose to become surrogate mothers only to earn that pot of gold. In fact, after it was legalised in 2002, the country too has been benefitting from the cash inflow. Being a financially feasible destination for foreigners, India is becoming a hub of surrogacy tourism. Until now, this little-known money-minting industry operated almost like the prostitution industry – with no rules and marred by social stigma. Now, attempts are being made to introduce legislations to this growing practice.

One of the proposed rules suggests that the child would gain automatic citizenship of his/her home country. In 2009, a Japanese father was caught in a legal tussle when he was refused custody of his child born through surrogacy, after undergoing a divorce, because Indian law does not allow the father to take custody of the child. An automatic citizenship would at least stop similar legal battles over the child. According to another regulation, clinics will be disallowed to perform procedures like sourcing, supplying and nursing surrogate mothers. The head of Akanksha clinic in Anand, Dr. Patel has carried the responsibility of surrogacy successfully since years. It makes little sense to establish a law that prohibits a hospital to carry out the process from beginning to end. Keeping the clinics away from prospective “malpractices and corruption” is the justification, but the rule still remains questionable.


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