Indian government considers regulating surrogacy
Updated
For years foreigners have been travelling to India to find surrogate mothers to have their babies.
The country's reproductive industry is unregulated, but now the government is considering a new surrogacy legislation, which is proving controversial.
Presenter: Alana Rosenbaum
Speakers: Yonatan Gher, employed an Indian surrogate; Dr Hrishikesh Pai, Consultant Gynaecologist and Infertility Specialist, Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai; Nitin Karani, gay rights activist, Humsafar Trust; Shaina Chudasama Munot, Spokesperson, BJP Maharashtra
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ALANA ROSENBAUM: Baby Evyatar was created in a laboratory in Mumbai with the sperm of his Israeli father, and the egg of an India donor.
As an embryo he was implanted in the womb of a second woman, a surrogate, who gave birth to him at a Mumbai hospital.
Moments later, he was handed over to the two men who will raise him; his biological father Yonatan Gher and Yonatan's partner Omer Gher.
India is one of the only countries in the world where gay couples like the Gher's can employ surrogates.
Yonatan Gher
YONATAN GHER: The two options that are available to us are India and the US and we chose India for several reasons; there was the money issue, it's cheaper to go through the process here, and there's a mutual help relationship through surrogacy and we thought it would do something better for someone if we could go through the process here.
ALANA ROSENBAUM: Surrogacy is big business in India. For six years, infertile couples from around the world have come in search of women to carry their babies. A legal vacuum has enabled the industry to flourish. In many countries, including Australia, commercial surrogacy is illegal, but in India, there are no laws regulating the practice, which means that anyone can employ a surrogate. A private legal agreement is usually brokered between the surrogate and biological parents.
But inadequacies in the system were highlighted recently when a Japanese man was denied custody of his newborn daughter, Manji. The man and his wife were to take the infant from the surrogate, but the agreement was voided when the couple divorced, and the woman decided not to mother Manji. As a single man, the biological father was ineligible under Indian law to adopt Manji, and ultimately it was the child's grandmother who was granted custody. The case prompted a raft of new draft laws regulating assisted reproduction. Dr Hrishikesh Pai is a surrogacy specialist.
DR HRISHIKESH PAI: The government has been very liberal, they've brought in a fantastic law. They have respected the reproductive rights of a woman, the government could have said lets ban it. In fact if they don't bring in a law it will go underground, the law prevents it from going underground.
ALANA ROSENBAUM: One of the most controversial clauses in the legislation allows single people to access surrogacy. This opens the way for gay couples to continue to produce babies in India. Indian gay rights activists welcome the bill, but say it's incongruous in a country where gay sex is still illegal. Nitin Karani is a gay rights activist.
NITIN KARANI: It definitely seems like a big irony, because a couple from abroad can come here, and gay couples can have babies through surrogacy, but at the same time the law says it's a crime to commit a homosexual act, an unnatural act as they call it.
ALANA ROSENBAUM: But Hindu groups are calling for the bill to be amended. Shaina Chudasama Munot represents the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
SHAINA CHUDASAMA MUNOT: If gays choose to have children, why not have them in their own country? Why come to India just because it's cheaper here, and just because by paying X amount of money you're going to be able to conceive a child. Why not have it in your own country?
ALANA ROSENBAUM: One recommendation the bill doesn't make is how much the surrogate should be paid. Today in India it costs about $US10,000 to produce a baby, of which the surrogate gets half.
Dr Pai
DR HRISHIKESH PAI: I personally feel that a surrogate, when she is bearing someone else's child for nine months, she is doing a favour for that couple that cannot actually be quantified in amount, it's a priceless kind of gesture she is doing so whatever money you pay her is not going to compensate her for losing nine months of her life, you have to understand that any pregnancy in a developed country or a developing country is risky and can cause morbidity and mortality even sometimes in the mothers.
ALANA ROSENBAUM: India's parliament is due to vote on the bill before the year's end.
