Surrogacy

ADEBANKE REBECCA ADEWUMI, 2017

Having a child is the ultimate happiness in life. Surrogacy as one of the methods of assisted reproductive technology (ART) like other methods has provided solutions to the challenges faced by involuntarily childless especially couples who are financially buoyant. Existing social and health protection rights to the surrogate mother covers the rights of the child in surrogacy arrangements. This project critically examines the grounds that exists to statutorily regulate or streamline who could access or provide surrogacy services and to protect the best interests of the consumers and children that may result from accessing the procedures. The surrogacy agents from the clinic claim that most of the commissioning mothers had missing uterus. However, other reasons for the commissioning parents to opt for surrogacy includes long term illness like diabetes, dysfunctional sexual organ etc There are some legal and ethical issues arising from the surrogacy arrangements. It seems not to be ethical for someone to create a human life with the intention of relinquishing it. This appears to be the primary concern for surrogate arrangements since the surrogate mother is providing germinal material only upon the assurance that someone else will take responsibility for the child she helps to create. The surrogate mother provides her ovum with the clear understanding that she has to avoid responsibility for the life she creates and she has to dissociate herself from the child in exchange of some other benefit such as money. In such a way, at the deepest level surrogate arrangements cannot be viewed as ethical, because they involve a change in motive for giving birth for the sake of some other benefits (money). On the other hand, using a surrogacy service when the biological mother cannot bear the child is no more morally objectionable than employing others to help educate, train, or otherwise care for a child. This paper seeks to address the legal and ethical issues of surrogacy as a method of assisted reproductive technology and examines the relevant domestic and international legislations, instruments and cases on this issue. Having a child is the ultimate happiness in life. Surrogacy as one of the methods of assisted reproductive technology (ART) like other methods has provided solutions to the challenges faced by involuntarily childless especially couples who are financially buoyant. Existing social and health protection rights to the surrogate mother covers the rights of the child in surrogacy arrangements. This project critically examines the grounds that exists to statutorily regulate or streamline who could access or provide surrogacy services and to protect the best interests of the consumers and children that may result from accessing the procedures. The surrogacy agents from the clinic claim that most of the commissioning mothers had missing uterus. However, other reasons for the commissioning parents to opt for surrogacy includes long term illness like diabetes, dysfunctional sexual organ etc There are some legal and ethical issues arising from the surrogacy arrangements. It seems not to be ethical for someone to create a human life with the intention of relinquishing it. This appears to be the primary concern for surrogate arrangements since the surrogate mother is providing germinal material only upon the assurance that someone else will take responsibility for the child she helps to create. The surrogate mother provides her ovum with the clear understanding that she has to avoid responsibility for the life she creates and she has to dissociate herself from the child in exchange of some other benefit such as money. In such a way, at the deepest level surrogate arrangements cannot be viewed as ethical, because they involve a change in motive for giving birth for the sake of some other benefits (money). On the other hand, using a surrogacy service when the biological mother cannot bear the child is no more morally objectionable than employing others to help educate, train, or otherwise care for a child. This paper seeks to address the legal and ethical issues of surrogacy as a method of assisted reproductive technology and examines the relevant domestic and international legislations, instruments and cases on this issue. ABSTRACT Having a child is the ultimate happiness in life. Surrogacy as one of the methods of assisted reproductive technology (ART) like other methods has provided solutions to the challenges faced by involuntarily childless especially couples who are financially buoyant. Existing social and health protection rights to the surrogate mother covers the rights of the child in surrogacy arrangements. This project critically examines the grounds that exists to statutorily regulate or streamline who could access or provide surrogacy services and to protect the best interests of the consumers and children that may result from accessing the procedures. The surrogacy agents from the clinic claim that most of the commissioning mothers had missing uterus. However, other reasons for the commissioning parents to opt for surrogacy includes long term illness like diabetes, dysfunctional sexual organ etc There are some legal and ethical issues arising from the surrogacy arrangements. It seems not to be ethical for someone to create a human life with the intention of relinquishing it. This appears to be the primary concern for surrogate arrangements since the surrogate mother is providing germinal material only upon the assurance that someone else will take responsibility for the child she helps to create. The surrogate mother provides her ovum with the clear understanding that she has to avoid responsibility for the life she creates and she has to dissociate herself from the child in exchange of some other benefit such as money. In such a way, at the deepest level surrogate arrangements cannot be viewed as ethical, because they involve a change in motive for giving birth for the sake of some other benefits (money). On the other hand, using a surrogacy service when the biological mother cannot bear the child is no more morally objectionable than employing others to help educate, train, or otherwise care for a child. This paper seeks to address the legal and ethical issues of surrogacy as a method of assisted reproductive technology and examines the relevant domestic and international legislations, instruments and cases on this issue.

Autrepart, 2014

India has a reputation for cheap medical costs and high success rates. Surrogacy was an infant term in Indian medical history up to 2000s. No doubt that It is a boon for medical innovation, but a shift from the humanitarian values to viewing it as a source of profit making is a big challenge for contemporary India. This paper aims to analyse India’s medical advancement in Surrogacy and its footprint effects on the health of mother and surrogate child. Paper also highlights the deteriorating and exploitary side of this miraculous process which has dug stiff feats in com-med industry of India. Today’s urban sedentary and stressful lifestyle have resulted infertility in couples, thus increases the demand for IVF and surrogacy. Acute poverty and vested commercial interests is the reason why woman lent their wombs. Commercial surrogacy has been largely favoured as it yields high income, just being at home. But since most of these women are illiterate and needy, they are exploited. Middlemen gains major share by identifying the surrogate to the donor party and the surrogate is left with even less than what she has invested. Negligence should be replaced by awareness and should be educated. Elimination of middlemen by legal provisioning, making counselling mandatory for the parties involved, etc. are some suggestions. We claim to be modern by our thinking, but over 20 million children in India are orphans most of which are abandoned. Adopting kids and giving them a life can be a better alternative to surrogacy.

Asian Bioethics Review, 2014

Report Submitted to The European Observatory for Non-Discrimination and Fundamental Rights (E.O.N.D.F.R.), France. , 2019

At the juncture when India has banned commercial, it was an appropriate time to examine what is the situation of commercial surrogacy and its transition to altruism in India. This was a follow-up study, from the previous study conducted in 2009-2010. I interviewed 45 surrogate mothers (SMs), who had completed 63 births and given away 90 babies since 2007 to 2017. All the surrogate mothers had completed surrogacy when I interviewed them. Some of my findings reiterated my previous findings. Some serious violations of human rights and medical ethics continues to take place; women are detained in surrogate homes against their wishes and desires, sex selective abortions are performed, the restrictions imposed on women in the surrogate homes are inhuman, none of them are given a copy of their contract, the manner in which the children have been relinquished is also inhuman as some are shown the face of the children, some are not, some are expected to bond with the babies, most are eventually alienated. Women are selected into surrogacy based on their class, age, skin colour, religion, caste and the payment varied according to these categories. Women are doing all this for money. Most of the households are poor, some are very poor and the remaining are at subsistence level, doing this to gain a higher order in their present class status. Couples from abroad and non-resident Indians formed the bulk of the clients. Almost all surrogate mothers (93%) think the surrogacy process is a form of slavery and most (67%) felt the process was similar to a form of sexual exploitation of their reproductive organs. Most didn’t repeat surrogacy again and those very poor who did repeat surrogacy were the only ones who could build/buy a house. Financially, it was only the very poor without any agricultural land or house ownership who have repeated surrogacy more than once who could buy or build a house. The very poor one timer surrogate mothers have not been able to buy a house, some slipped back into abject poverty. It is only the few who were already at a subsistence level who have been able to take advantage of this extra money to enhance their economic situation. Most women did surrogacy for building/buying a house. It is the housing, health and education situation that is the root cause of surrogacy practices in India. It is important that the public and private educational, health and housing sector in India is focused towards health and education for all and also to provide low-cost housing. The surrogate mothers described the embryo transfer period as intrusive, painful, clamped down, harsh and dreadful. Pregnancy was over-medicalized with injections, medicines, ultrasounds in-utero selective abortions, cervical cerclage for twins and filled with experience of illness and depression. During delivery they experienced; fear of death, complications, fear of caesarean section, pain, neglect by commissioning parents and cruel ways in which the child(ren) is separated from them. Overall the physical and emotional impact of surrogacy has been immense on their lives. Many are suffering from an emotional setback, physically they have become weak after the surrogacy treatment, multiple embryo transfer trials, miscarriages, uterus removal and do not have the capacity to work as they used to earlier and many have developed some kinds of morbidities and have experienced near-death situations during surrogacies. Some surrogacy and egg donor deaths have been hushed up and not been reported. Not only the surrogate mothers, but also their children carry the sorrow of giving away the children born through surrogacy. The relationship with the commissioning parents as expressed by all surrogate mothers, was nice only until the baby was in their womb. After the delivery, most commissioning parents turned into inconsiderate, selfish and even cruel beings. From a global perspective, India is a typical case of how rampant violations of human and child rights, women’s bodily integrity and medical ethics thrived on global structural inequalities. In the garb of reproductive liberty, the surrogacy practice promotes deeply embedded pronatalist, patriarch, racial, ageist, casteist, sexist and ableist hegemony. This raises globally relevant questions of geneticisation, alienation of the gestational role, human and child rights violations, trafficking and reproductive injustice. Surrogacy hence needs to be included as a form of universal human rights violation.

Healthcare in Low-resource Settings, 2016

The advances of childbirth in the form of test tube babies and surrogate have introduced undreamt possibilities. The reproductive tourism in India is enhancing. Globally, India is one of the popular providers of surrogates and commercial surrogacy is legalized. Moreover, the cost is a mere one third of the cost in developing countries. Surrogacy raises ethical issues like medical advocacy and consent. Many social factors like unemployment, literacy, and others play a key role in surrogacy. Surrogacy is a public health problem related not only to the medical burden but also to sex ratio deterioration, female feticide, domestic violence, and others.

Surrogacy, 2022

Surrogacy constitutes an institution that has recently been widely recognised and applied. It has also left a legislative and jurisprudence imprint in a multitude of states, especially at the European level, bearing in mind the rise of medically and technologically assisted reproduction. Nevertheless, despite its significant historical presence, surrogacy continues to present several ethical dilemmas, ranging from the individual ethics of each person and the societal ethics of each legal order, as well as certain legal issues, especially in the context of international law.

International Journal of Economics and Management Studies, 2016

In this planate a women is respected as a wife only if she is mother of a child, but when the parents are fail to construct the child through natural process called biological means, the problem arise and women are directly pointed out for this defect. The traditional and orthodox society of rural area especially in India the illiterate people argued that women are the one who is totally responsible for this kind of disturbance. But in the present world the desire of parenthood forced the many more families who are not able to construct the child by biological means to invest in modern technological innovation to search alternatives for mention propose. In modern term Infertility has social impact, particularly for women, who, without children, are often highly marginalized. The past few decades witnessed massive revolution in technological sector like, I.T, BPO and Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in health sector. The massive investment in health sector reflects the growth of Medical Tourism in India which is drawing attention of the world towards it. The result of these development India witnesses massive increase in flow of foreign tourist and NRIs for the purpose of availing various healthcare facilities especially in the case of surrogacy. In the context of surrogacy India appear as an important destination for the outsiders due to its cheap rates and legal relaxation. Many parents who want child come down to India with great dreams and hope for attaining the joy of parenthood through Assisted Reproductive Technology or the artificial method to obtain child called surrogacy. While in this paper researcher try to find out the economic importance of surrogacy and analyse the overall view in mention topic in India.

Nagpur Multidisciplinary Law Review, 2023

In the last decade, India saw an emerging economic opportunity in the frame of Commercial Surrogacy. It became a temporary solution for penurious women to uplift themselves and their families from poverty and destitution. Recent years saw an exponential rise in the business of surrogacy due to the influx of international couples. This happened because of the presence of qualified medical practitioners, quality care for surrogates, relatively low cost, and above all, the readiness of poor women as surrogates. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, the act bans the practice of commercial surrogacy in India, allowing only altruistic surrogacy to infertile Indian married couples. This act makes conditions that only legally married Indian heterosexual couples, divorced and widow women can opt for surrogacy, thus excluding single people, live-in couples, widowers, and gay couples, amongst others. But parenthood is beyond gender and sexual preferences. Excluding anyone from availing it based on their sexuality, nationality, the status of marriage etc. is a severe infringement of their human rights. Further, this act allows altruistic surrogacy, implying it should not include any monetary benefits and should be done only for the sake of humanity. This act is made with an aim to curb exploitation, but ironically, it is curtailing the rights of surrogate women by removing the commercial benefit. Through the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021, the government failed to acknowledge the nuanced forms of exploitation prevalent in altruistic surrogacy and has a limited understanding of the freedom, rights and choices of women.