HYDERABAD: Which permissions need to be sought to operate in a Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinic? Which rules related to surrogacy exist?
Telangana Health and Family Welfare department officials said that there are no clear cut guidelines on Surrogacy which helps them to know if any illegal activity is taken up at Hospital where ART procedures are practised.
On Thursday morning, officials of the department will meet to discuss the issue. It is learnt from well-placed sources, the discussions on surrogacy was not slated for the discussions earlier. However, after raids were conducted on Sai Kiran Hospital (a Unit of Kiran Infertility Centre), this was included as a topic in the meeting.
It is learnt that some of the officials are of the opinion that keeping the surrogate mothers at a clinic is wrong. “But there are no Acts or sections under which we can book cases. If the sex of a baby is determined before birth, cases can be booked. But there are no clear cut guidelines on surrogacy,” sources in the department said.
Apart from surrogacy, discussions will be held on Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act(PCPNDT), 1994, and Clinical Establishments Act.
Requirements for surrogacy
After the raids on Saturday, gynecologists and officials have been enquiring about rules required for a hospital to take up surrogacies.
Anurag Chawla, Advocate at Surrogacy Laws India (a firm), said that for a ART Clinic to take up surrogacies, they have to be enrolled under Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR’s) ‘National Registry of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Clinics and Banks in India’ and take due permissions for a hospital from State concerned.
A Gynecologist, who did not wanted to be named, said that if a Clinic wants to take up ART procedures, they have to register as genetic clinic under PCPNDT Act.
When asked if women can be kept at a clinic until delivery, Anurag Chawla said, “They are all human beings. They should be given due care, medical facilities and hygienic food so that they will deliver healthy baby. Newborns belongs to commissioning couples”.
Law in the offing
Gynecologists who have been tracking developments in The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill 2016 said it is still in draft stage and opinions of doctors, surrogate mothers, were collected on the bill. “There might be amendments to the draft Bill,” a doctor said. Salient features of the Bil state that abandoning children born out of surrogacy and people or organisations indulging in commercial surrogacy will be jailed for ten years and fined I10 lakh