Surrogate mothers must not be restricted to close family alone: Parliamentary panel

A Parliamentary panel on Wednesday suggested allowing any “willing woman” to be a surrogate mother in artificial reproduction rather than restricting such a choice within “close relatives” as suggested in a draft law, introduced by the Narendra Modi government in its first innings.

“Surrogate mothers should not be restricted to close relatives alone. Instead, any willing woman should be allowed to be so,” the Rajya Sabha Select Committee on Surrogacy bill, headed by BJP MP Bhupender Yadav, observed in its report tabled in the Parliament.

Since restricting surrogacy within the family potentially reduces the availability of surrogate mothers affecting the genuinely needy persons, any willing woman might be permitted to undergo surrogacy procedures as per the provisions of this act, the committee noted, advising the government to drop the controversial provision from the bill.

This is the second House panel that came down on the draft law – introduced by the former Union Health Minister and existing BJP president J P Nadda – while advocating removal of the concept of altruistic surrogacy from the law.

“The altruistic surrogacy model is based more on moralistic assumptions than any scientific criteria and all kinds of value judgments have been injected into it in a paternalistic manner,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, then headed by Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav, had stated in its 2017 report.

Another major change recommended by the Select Committee is to allow a single woman such as a widow or a divorcee in the age group of 35-45 years to avail surrogacy, removing the provision of requirement of five years as the period of inability to conceive before opting for surrogacy. The Persons of Indian Origin can also opt for surrogacy in India.

“There are conditions under which a single person genuinely needs to avail surrogacy option to have child. One such situation is a young aged widow, who is otherwise capable but cannot carry child because of fear of social stigma attached to pregnancy of widow in our society.”

To take care of the interests of surrogate mothers, the panel recommended increasing the insurance cover from 16 months as proposed in the bill, to 36 months.

On the eligibility criteria, the Committee recommended deletion of the definition of 'Infertility' as the inability to conceive after five years of unprotected sexual intercourse as provided for in the Bill on the ground that it was too long a period for a couple to wait.

The Committee noted there might be certain proven medical conditions like absence of uterus by birth, non-functional uterus, removal of uterus due to cancer, fibroids or patients with chronic medical condition where normal pregnancy was ruled out and surrogacy was the only option. The requirement of obtaining certificate of proven infertility is not justified in such cases. These are among the 15 major changes suggested by the Select Committee.