‘Surrogate mother need not be a close relative’

NEWDELHI: An “intending couple” may approach any woman and not just a “near relative” to seek her consent to be a surrogate mother, a Select Committee report on the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill 2019 tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday has recommended. This is one of the 15 suggestions made by the panel, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Bhupender Yadav, after the bill was passed by the Lok Sabha last August but referred to a House panel in November following heated debates in the Rajya Sabha. One of the main demands of the dissenting parliamentarians was to do away with a clause that stipulated that only near relatives of the couple could become surrogate mothers, as it was felt that this may encourage violations against vulnerable women in joint families, as well as narrow the pool of potential surrogates.

“The Committee finds that the term ‘close relative’ potentially restricts the availability of surrogate mother and may affect the genuinely needy persons. The Committee is, therefore, of the view that it may be removed,” the report stated.

It recommended replacing the term with “willing woman” and retained the age bracket of 25 to 35 years for the surrogate mother, as stipulated in the bill.

Another significant suggestion by the 23-member committee was that the intending couple need not wait for five years to opt for parenthood through a surrogate, as stipulated by the bill.

The Department of Health Research submitted to the committee that the intending couple needed to exhaust all means of having a child of their own with the help of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) , as “the joy of bearing one’s own child can never be the same as can be had through surrogacy”.