1. The document discusses surrogacy practices in India, including traditional and gestational surrogacy arrangements and some of the major IVF clinics.
2. It notes issues like the exploitation of surrogate mothers, lack of legal protections, health risks, and questions around children's citizenship and parentage that arise.
3. Recommendations include establishing a rights-based legal framework for surrogate mothers and children, monitoring clinics, and providing medical support for surrogate mothers.
3. Surrogacy-an arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers
a child for another couple or person
• Traditional Surrogacy
• Gestational surrogacy
4. There’s money to be had, it’s for a short-term period and there is the
satisfaction of bringing happiness to someone’s life
Remuneration leads to independence
A hopeful future
A right
Medical Tourism
Better living conditions
Upliftment of women
5. Trend toward “increasingly personal” global service work
• Facilitates contact with overseas doctors & hospitals and present their
credentials to prospective clients
• India has the best IVF services in the world and the fact that English is widely
spoken makes it easier for foreigners to avail of medical services
• At an approximate growth of 30% each year, medical tourism could bring
between $1 billion and $2 billion US into India by 2012
• According to Indian Council of Medical Research commercial surrogacy will
grow from being a $445 million-a-year business
6. IVF clinics in India
• Akanksha Infertility Clinic, Anand, Gujarat
• Dr Sada Centre For Reproduction & Assisted Conception Mothercare Hospital,
Pune
• Diksha Test Tube Baby Centre, Hyderabad
• Nadkarni Hospital & Test Tube Baby Centre, Surat
• Deccan Fertility Clinic & Keyhole Surgery Centre, Mumbai
• A.H Ivf & Infertility Research Centre, Kolkatta
and more …
7. To secure a ‘better life’ for themselves and their families
• Surrogates in India earns up to Rs. 2,00,000- 4,00,000
• For the surrogates -- usually lower middleclass housewives -- money is the primary
motivator
• Money to buy a better home or even provide an education for their children
• Fulfillment of distant dreams
8. The act of becoming a mother (surrogate mother), is not only a self-
sacrificing but truly a brave decision
• The act of giving life, a reason to live, making dreams possible for childless
couples
• Gift of compassion, patience and love from one woman to another
9. Aamir-Kiran Baby Spotlights Surrogacy Issues in India
• Amir Khan and Kiran Rao’s seven-day-
old baby boy born through IVF (In Vitro
Fertilization) surrogacy.
• Aamir has done a great job bringing the
procedure into the mainstream.
• The couple is also getting a thumbs up
from the film fraternity
10. What is wrong in Surrogacy??...
Exploitative
Lack of legal protection
Health Issues
Dark Future
Unregulated
Shifting Focus
11. A Human incubator on Hire
• The surrogate mother is treated as a biological commodity, as a place to gestate
a child for money
•The surrogates are recruited from rural villages, with most recruits being poor
and illiterate
• Practice of “selective reduction” - killing of one or more multiple foetuses in
the womb
• Some surrogates are pressured into it by their families
• Quality control of the woman and her uterus
12. The Unbalancing Act
• Surrogate mothers are first and foremost mothers
to their own children
• Leave home for the duration of the pregnancy and
live in a hostel run by the surrogacy agency.
• No good reason for the surrogate mother to have
to abandon her family and move far away from her
family for almost 9 months.
• No balance between a surrogate mother as a
mother and a surrogate mother helping another
couple
• Rights of their own children to the society of their
mother compromised.
13. Business in reproductive tourism is thriving in India, growing at some 7%
annually
• Surrogate mothers need to sign a “contract” with the childless couple. There are no
stipulations as to what will happen if this “contract’ is violated
•While an American surrogate would get 50-75% of the total fees, and Indian surrogate
receives only 25%
• Young vulnerable girls from orphanages were ‘hired out’ for surrogacy and the surrogate
mothers themselves never got any money
• Over 1000 clinics offering fertility services to couples from all over the world traveling to
India
• Who will take the responsibility of the child if the
commissioning parents refuse to take the former due
to abnormalities?
• What happens if the surrogate mother changes her
mind & refuses to hand over the baby or blackmails for
custody?
•Will the child born to an Indian mother be a citizen of
this country?
14. Baby Manji: A stateless surrogate
baby
• Japanese baby Manji Yamada, born to an
Indian surrogate mother
• The Japanese embassy in Delhi refused to
issue a passport
• The father, accompanied by his mother
Emiko, travelled to Ahmadabad and took
custody of the child
• Jaipur-based NGO, Satya, moved
Rajasthan High Court on August 12
claiming the grandmother’s custody of the
baby was illegal
15. India accounted for 19% of the estimated 287,000 women who died in
pregnancy and childbirth in 2010, according to the United Nations
• Forced to deliver by C-section even though C-sections carry a double to quadruple
risk of death during childbirth
• Repeated pregnancies can even affect cardiovascular health
• Short-term effects - fatigue and vomiting to the swelling of joints
• Long term effects - from scarring, varicose veins to loose skin
• Psychological distress
16. Biological Colonialism Kills
• Renting out her womb to a US couple cost Amraiwadi resident Premila Vaghela her life
• Premila Vaghela died in the eighth month of her pregnancy
• Doctors conducted an emergency Caesarean and saved the baby boy
• There was almost no coverage of Premila’s death in the United States
17. Government’s initiatives
• 2002- Commercial surrogacy in India legalized
• 2005 –Introduction and implementation of
National Guidelines for Accreditation, Supervision
and Regulation of Assisted Reproductive
Technology (ART) Clinic in India by the ICMR,
MoHFW, Government of India
• June25,2008–Meeting-cum-workshop called by the
MoWCD, Government of India
• December 2010-Introduction of Draft ART Bill
• However, till date there is no such laws to protect
the rights and interests of the surrogate mother,
the child or the commissioning parents
18. Recommendations
• Right-based legal framework for the surrogate mothers, ICMR guidelines not enough
• The surrogate mother should not undergo more than 3 trials and it has to be
monitored
• Surrogate mother left without any medical support- should be a provision of intensive
care and medical check-ups of their reproductive organs during the 3 months after
pregnancy
• The citizenship right of the surrogate baby- Indian government needs to take a stand
in terms of conferring the surrogate baby Indian citizenship
• The government needs to monitor the surrogacy clinics, which generally charge
arbitrary prices for surrogacy arrangements