Loopholes in surrogacy draft Bill to help ART clinics mushroom

HYDERABAD: All the big talk about the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016, notwithstanding, the proposed legislation has several

legal and social

lacunae that may only further help assisted reproductive technology (ART) clinics mushroom and deprive

surrogate mothers

and the children born through surrogacy of their legitimate social status.

According to experts in

reproductive health

, the

Surrogacy Bill

does not cover a majority of the ART clinics engaged in taking care of infertility problems. As the focus of the Bill is on surrogacy, it exempts ART centres that do not take up surrogacy cases.

This will only lead to mushrooming of ART centres in the absence of proper legal checks, point out experts, who suggest that the entire ART procedure be brought under the ambit of the new legislation.

The proposed legislation calls for the formation of regulatory and administrative bodies only for surrogacy centres. This, in other words, means that most of the ART centres will escape the purview of the current Bill. As surrogacy involves one or more ART forms, surrogacy clinics cannot be regulated without first reining in all the ART centres.

Experts point out that the Surrogacy Bill also conveniently forgets several issues of paramount importance for the surrogate mothers, the children and the intending infertile couple.

Though the Bill is aimed at protecting the interests of surrogate mothers, ironically there is no provision in the proposed legislation for written informed consent of the surrogate mother. There is also no provision for birth certificate of child/children born through surrogacy having the names of the intending infertile couple. Also, the bill does not specify the maximum number of successive IVF cycles that the surrogate mother can undergo.

It is also silent on breast feeding of child/children born through surrogacy by the surrogate mother. There is no provision for a human milk bank.

Ironically, the Bill also overlooks the rights of the surrogate child, on reaching majority (18 years), to know his genetic information and that of his surrogate mother. It also does not provide for social security and insurance rights in case of death or permanent disability to the infertile parent or parents before the delivery of the "surrogate" child.

The proposed law also overlooks mandatory health screening and background checks of surrogate mothers and intending parents, right to privacy and confidentiality of the parties involved, the need to save the life of surrogate mother over the child in life-threatening conditions, and payment of compensation to the family of the surrogate mother in case of her death.

Also, there is no provision to fix accountability of the

ART centre

if the surrogate mother dies during or immediately after pregnancy. Health experts suggest that the intending infertile couple should be barred from enlisting multiple surrogate mothers simultaneously.