WUNRN
INDIA - SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD BOOM -
LEGAL CONCERNS
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INDIA - SURROGACY BOOM AWAITS LEGAL
REGULATION
Surrogacy
became legal in India in 2002 and since then infertility centers have
multiplied to match the number of couples with surrogates, who say the income
is crucial. But critics say payment isn't high enough and the industry needs
ethical oversight.
NEW DELHI
(WOMENSENEWS)--Chandini, 27, holds the hand of her 6-year-old daughter as she
enters an in vitro fertilization center for a checkup.
"I had
to change two buses to make it to here," she says in a hushed voice,
smiling as she wipes the sweat off her forehead with her cotton sari.
Chandini
says she became a surrogate mother to earn money for her family.
"I
want a better life for my daughters," she says.
Her
husband's earnings as a daily wage carpenter – around $80 a month – isn't
enough to support their two daughters, so Chandini works as a housemaid and has
become a surrogate. She's been promised almost $4,500 for carrying and
delivering this fetus for a Canadian couple, who couldn't bear their own child.
"This
money means a lot to me," she says.
Hundreds of
Indian women rent their wombs to earn money for their families. And the number
is growing here, where commercial surrogacy is legal and there are so far no
laws or governmental oversight.
Since India
legalized commercial surrogacy in 2002, in vitro fertilization centers have
multiplied, attracting aspiring parents from around the globe, says Sanjay
Agarwal, chairman of SATYA, an advocacy organization for surrogate children's
rights.
The low cost
of infertility treatment in India – nearly one-quarter of the cost in developed
nations – and the modern assisted reproductive techniques available here make
India a top choice for infertility treatments, according to the Indian
government's medical tourism Web site. The Confederation of Indian Industry
predicts that commercial surrogacy will be a $2.3 billion industry by 2012.
Gujarat
- Unofficial Surrogacy World Capital
Gujarat, a
state in western India, has become the unofficial surrogacy capital of the
world.
Dr. Nayna
Patel, who became the face of the Indian surrogacy industry when Oprah Winfrey
profiled her and her Gujarat clinic, Akanksha Infertility Clinic, in 2007, says
the money earned from being a surrogate mother transforms lives.
In India, 42
percent of the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 a
day, according to UNICEF.
"It's
only for our financial difficulties [that] my husband let[s] me do it,"
Chandini says.
Sighing, Chandini
adds that "daughters mean burden" in India, referring to the steep
dowry that many families must pay their daughters' husbands when they get
married.
But Manasi
Mishra, head of a surrogacy study at the New Delhi-based Centre for Social
Research, says that surrogate mothers' lives aren't improved that much
financially.
Surrogacy
also raises legal concerns, says the center's director, Ranjana Kumari, as
there aren't legal provisions to protect the surrogate mother, child or
parents-to-be.
The majority
of surrogate mothers dislike the way clinics treat them, according to the
center's surrogacy study. Women are often coerced into repeated inseminations
if the first one fails, not allowed to meet the receiving families and paid
only after relinquishing the baby to the clinic.
Kumari says
commercial surrogacy also has social ramifications. Although Western cultures
accept it, traditional Indian values condemn it.
"A
surrogate mother can face many levels of violence, including social
ostracizing," Kumari says.
But Patel
disagrees.
"All
the reputed IVF clinics have been following many guidelines," she says.
"Who says that surrogate mothers are exploited?"
A Dangerous Process
SATYA's
Agarwal says health care conditions here also make it a dangerous process for
women, who tend to have children of their own to care for.
"Is it
ethical for a country like India, which has one of the worst maternal mortality
rates in the world, where a woman dies during childbirth every seven minutes,
to promote and allow commercial surrogacy?" Agarwal asks.
The Indian
Council of Medical Research has drafted a bill to govern surrogacy.
"The
bill will take some time to become a law," says Dr. R.S. Sharma, a member
of the drafting committee.
Chandini
says she doesn't tell people -- not even her children -- that she's a surrogate
mother.
"Akanksha
has specialized counseling programs for the to-be surrogate mother," Patel
says, to help with the social stigma and potential pain of giving up one's
baby. "They are made to meet the commissioning parents, too. And of course
they are taken good care of."
Chandini
says it isn't easy, but that she has few other options.
"It
takes a heart to give away a baby you feel growing in your womb for nine
months," Chandini says. "It's what being poor makes you do."
Adapted
from original content published by the Global Press Institute. Read the
original article here. All shared content has been copyrighted by Global Press
Institute.