Ban not enough, Govt needs to look at details: doctors

While most welcomed the ban on commercial surrogacy in the country, experts across various fields have pointed out finer details about the matter which the government needs to either clarify or address immediately.

Calling altruistic surrogacy impractical, fertility specialist and assistant director at GG Hospitals Dr Priya Selvaraj said that regulating the entire process of surrogacy would have been a more practical solution.In altruistic surrogacy, the surrogate mother, often a person close to the couple, does not receive any monetary compensation.

“The government could have set up a state regulator to get the clinics which carry out surrogacy to register themselves. That way, the regulator would have exercised control over the functioning of the clinics. In absence of such a process, an outright ban is not likely to work,” said Dr Priya.

GG Hospitals, where the first surrogate baby was delivered in 1994, witnessed a few cases of altruistic in the beginning but commercial surrogacy soon took over, said the doctor.

Dr Priya also noted that the new law would deny Indians living abroad to use the option to pay for a surrogate mother. “How will altruistic surrogacy help them? How are they going to find a surrogate mother who could not be paid for her service? It is fine to ban foreigners seeking surrogate mothers in India, like in western countries, as couples choose to come here as the procedure is much cheaper in this country, but it complicates matters for those of Indian origin and getting only close family to do surrogacy is highly restrictive,” the doctor said.

Stressing on the need to bring in a law to identify who needs a surrogacy, Dr Nithya Ramamurthy, senior obstetrician at Fortis Malar Hospital, said, “There are clear signs which indicate if a woman will not be able to conceive. This is similar to a case I was handling recently where every time the patient conceived, her blood pressure would shoot up and the foetus would die. This continued till she lost three foetuses. Despite medicines to control her pressure, she could not carry her foetus. If she continued, she would have had seizures.”

“In such a case even a test tube baby or In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) was not an option as the uterus was not in a condition to carry the foetus to term. Also, none of her relatives were willing to be a surrogate mother. Now, what will any woman in her situation do,” Dr Nithya said.

Stating that depending on altruistic surrogacy can be problematic, gynaecologist Dr Jaishree Gajaraj said, “In a day and age where nuclear families rule the roost, finding a relative to be a surrogate can become quite a difficult task for couples. Besides, it can also lead to disputes within the family.”

The doctor added that the social and psychological aspects of altruistic surrogacy can be more worrisome. “Earlier, even though the child may learn that was born to a surrogate mother, he would not know her identity. With this law, however, the identity of the mother can hardly be a secret with her being a part of the family. The revelation could traumatise the child,” Dr Jaishree said.

She added that the issue is sensitive and is not like a kidney donation where the donor requires to be a relative.

AJ Hariharan, the chairperson of G-SMART, a body that has been working towards ensuring the rights of surrogate mothers, said that banning commercial surrogacy was not a positive step. “Surrogate mothers are available voluntarily. The new act will close gates for couples who are childless and cause them a lot of emotional trauma. People from all over the world come to India because we are medically advanced in this field and offer the service at rates almost four times lower than those in other countries. The new act will put an end to all of it,” said Hariharan.