Parliamentary Standing Committee Recommends Wide-Ranging Changes To The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 [Read the Report]

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016, which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, suffers from serious infirmities, if the 102nd Report on the Bill, presented to the Rajya Sabha, and laid on the Table of the Lok Sabha on August 10, is any indication.The report begins stating that the potential for exploitation of surrogacy is linked to the lack of regulatory oversight and legal protection to the surrogate and can be minimized through adequate legislative norm-setting and robust regulatory oversight.Economic opportunities available to surrogates through surrogacy services should not be dismissed in a paternalistic manner; Permitting women to provide reproductive labour for free to another person but preventing them from being paid for their reproductive labour is grossly unfair and arbitrary, the report says.In the altruistic arrangement, the commissioning couple gets a child; and doctors, lawyers and hospitals get paid. However, the surrogate mothers are expected to practice altruism. Therefore, it is far removed from the ground realities, the report suggests.Altruistic surrogacy only by close relatives will always be because of compulsion and coercion and not because of altruism. The Bill’s emphasis on altruistic surrogacy, therefore, baffled the Committee.Adoption cannot be an alternative to surrogacy. In the name of adoption, the Government cannot take away the reproductive rights of couples to have a biologically related child through surrogacy, the report further states.The compensation for surrogacy must be commensurate with the lost wages for the duration of pregnancy, medical screening and psychological counseling of surrogate; child care support or psychological counseling for surrogate mother’s own child/children, dietary supplements and medication, maternity clothing and post delivery care, the report has recommended.The committee has further recommended that in case the surrogate mother dies in the course of surrogate pregnancy, or while giving birth to the surrogate child, additional compensation should be given to the kin of the surrogate mother.The amount of compensation should be fixed by relevant authorities and the compensation so fixed should not be the subject matter of bargain between the commissioning couple and the surrogate mother, another recommendation has reasoned.Surrogacy should not be allowed as a profession. No woman can become a surrogate more than once, according to the Bill. This has been endorsed by the report.The committee was told by the stake-holders that restricting it to only Indian married couples is discriminatory and violative of the right to life, personal liberty, reproductive autonomy and right to equality guaranteed to all persons under the Constitution of India. But the committee is not in favour of extending the option of commissioning surrogacy to foreign nationals, who it says, choose India because the procedure is much cheaper here. However, the committee disagreed with the Bill’s denial of eligibility to NRIs, PIOs and OCIs cardholders, who are of Indian origin. The committee has recommended that the intending couple should provide a specific declaration or a NOC that the child born out of surrogacy would be getting the same citizenship rights as possessed by the intending couple.The committee has recommended that all intending couples should have the right to go for second chance at surrogacy in case of any abnormality in the previous child irrespective of the fact whether the abnormal child is born through surrogacy or by other means.The committee has recommended a comprehensive insurance cover for the surrogate mother covering even the after effects of surrogacy.A period of six years of medical insurance cover along with life insurance of a certain sum of money for the surrogate mother needs to be determined to cover any health complications that may occur long after delivery, the report suggests.Social security insurance for the surrogate child in the event of death of commissioning parents during the process of surrogacy or divorce during the process of surrogacy is another suggestion of the committee.Maternity Benefits to the surrogate mother as well as the intending mother as both of them are involved in child birth and child rearing respectively, is another constructive suggestion from the committee.The committee also wants the Bill’s silence on gamete donation to be addressed, as in case of one of the commissioning couple being infertile, the gamete will be required to be donated by somebody. Gamete donation will also take the requirements of wodows and divorced women into account, the report reasons.The Committee also favours bringing the ART Bill before the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016, for regulating ART clinics which will be dealing with surrogacy.The Committee has suggested that the Bill be modified to require that the appropriate authority, envisaged should state categorically...

Parliamentary Standing Committee Recommends Wide-Ranging Changes To The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 [Read the Report]

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