Will the Surrogacy Bill with 10-year jail sentence and `10,000 fine help curb the practice?
Several doctors are optimistic about it. I agree, though I do have to add that for there to be “live” laws they need to not just have teeth but those teeth need to bite. Should Parliament pass this Bill, people found breaking this law—no matter how high-profile—will need to be punished with appropriate publicity and medical-disbarment. Only then will there be a delinking of money-greed on one side and genetic-greed on the other.
Are there inadequacies in the Surrogacy Bill in its current form?
There are four areas of concern. As example, the “close relative” clause for which I have suggested a workable solution. Then there are these wordings, “The [altruistic] surrogate mother will carry a child which will be genetically related” to the intending parents. This is particularly problematic—whose egg
will it be and whose sperm?
What if the husband is impotent and the wife’s egg is IVF-consummated with the sperm of his genetic father or brother?
It is said that the Bill discriminates against homosexuals and unmarried couples.
I find myself baffled at this echo-chamber created by a small section within the upper-class South Delhi English-speaking elite. In essence what they are goading the impressionable to believe is that they must insist on being like them, if only on this issue. Be the “haves” and therefore have the right to insist on exploiting the bodies of women who, so far, have all been have-nots.
It is also regrettable that they have lumped lesbians into the “singles cause”; they are women first and are as likely to be happy in giving an altruistic surrogate the choice to be, or not be, a birth-mother. The book also refers to international homosexual individuals and organisations who are considerate about women’s rights and decry surrogacy, be it commercial or altruistic. Sadly, this vested-interest indignation to allow all to wreak hormonal-havoc on a uterus is also shutting down the voices of those Indian homosexual men who are as appalled at how some Delhi-based politicians are playing politics over a woman’s womb in their name.
You have pointed out the different terms used to describe infertility—sterile for men and barren for women. This being a reflection of society, will infertility not continue to be treated as a disease?
Everywhere women are made to feel “lesser” for not producing progeny; infertility will be promoted by the repro tech industry as “the happily ever after”. Even when it’s male-factor infertility, the woman will bear the brunt. Any non-natural pregnancy, give or take a few changes depending upon the woman’s body (be she the direct-patient or a surrogate), here is some of the hyper-medicalisation upon her for her body to hold that baby for the pregnancy period. If she is the biological-mother—i.e. like most of our mothers, the egg-giver or genetic plus the birth-mother—she has to go through hormonal ovarian stimulation before this, which is again not without acute risks since oocyte-retrieval is under general anaesthesia.
The uterus has to be made ready to receive an embryo (when it is lab-mated), drugs and hormones. The uterus should not be allowed to reject the embryo—drugs and hormones to make the embryo “stick”. Before which, drugs and hormones to time the embryo transfer. After which drugs and hormones to keep the uterine lining prepared to maintain early pregnancy. To suppress the immune system from interfering with embryo implantation—steroids. If there is depression, and is due to hormones, anti-depressants are a problem since these might harm the foetus. Clearly, in the context of aggressive-IVF, it’s as important that men begin to think about fatherhood-by-choice.