Bill on regulation of surrogacy tabled in Rajya Sabha

NEW DELHI: The Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday tabled the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 in Rajya Sabha (RS) that bans commercial surrogacy in the country.

“This is an ethical legislation that the government is bringing,” Harsh Vardhan said.

The Bill leaves the option of only altruistic surrogacy open for couples wherein a close relative can be the surrogate, without any exchange of money except for necessary medical expenses.

Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav calling it unrealistic. “The clause of proposing a close relative as surrogate is unrealistic. It is the most complicated option, and will not let the Bill pass,” he said. Everyone else is making money, the couple is getting a child, but the surrogate is getting nothing out of it...”.

According to the Bill, only infertile Indian couples (between the age of 23-50 years and 26-55 years for female and male), respectively, who have been legally married for at least five years would be allowed to opt for surrogacy, but only through altruistic surrogacy.

Altruistic surrogacy means the surrogate mother has to be a close relative who has been married and has had a child of her own, and there is no monetary exchange except for necessary medical expenses. It is likely to be passed in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

The experts in the field say that altruistic surrogacy is not a feasible concept. “I got so many calls from my panic-stricken patients to know if all hopes had finished for them. The Bill has come in its original form; all recommendations have been discarded. Nobody is going to abandon the thought of having a child; they will go to other countries,” said Dr Shivani Sachdev Gour, Delhi-based IVF expert.

The Lok Sabha had passed the Bill in August this year.