HYDERABAD: If you want to emulate Tusshar Kapoor or Shah Rukh Khan and approach a surrogate for a child in the country, then you surely have to read the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016. Approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, the bill is aimed at putting an end to the exploitation of economically poor women and also the ‘surrogacy mafia’.
“There is a mafia running in the name of surrogacy and it’s a `50 crore business. The new Bill will stop this,” said Tripurana Venkataratnam, chairman of Telangana Women's Commission, on Friday.
“Commercial surrogacy is banned. Dalit and tribal women are the most exploited as surrogates,” she said, while interacting with media here.
The Bill does not allow foreign and gay couples, single men or women and couples who already have children to approach a surrogate. A couple has to be certified by a medical doctor that either one or both of them is infertile and only then will they be allowed to approach a surrogate. The surrogate should be a willing, family member only. “Gay couples are as good as divorced couples. They are together for a while and then part ways. The child gets abandoned. Couples who approach a surrogate, according to this bill, have to be married at least for five years,” she informed. The Bill assures right to property and inheritance to the child in case of a divorce.