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Looking for a
Surrogate Mother or an egg donor?
This book
is a moving real-life account of one woman's struggle
with infertility and her journey through surrogacy to
have the family she desperately wanted.
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Latest Surrogacy News
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Finding
surrogate mothers easier
SEEMA KAMDAR
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2004 02:32:06 AM ]
MUMBAI: When
London-based Avantiben (name changed) could not
bear a child because she was suffering from a
congenital condition called Rokitansky Syndrome,
she asked her 40-plus mother in Gujarat to bear
one for her.
The mother bore
two babies for her daughter, putting a question
mark over conventional relationships in the
family and, more significantly, causing legal
complications.
The twins will have to be legally adopted by
their parents because of a lack of clearcut
guidelines on the subject in the UK.
The situation is similar in many other
countries, including India. As of today, there
is no law in the country that governs this new
field of human enterprise.
Surrogate motherhood—or bearing an artifically
conceived baby for a known or unknown couple—may
be the newest big thing in infertility
treatment, but couples opting for it are
becoming increasingly concerned over the poor
social acceptance of the practice and the legal
hassles involved.
Couples in India are still not comfortable with
disclosing that a surrogate's help was used to
make a baby for fear of the law.
However, this may soon change and the first step
towards becoming a parent may begin with a visit
to the lawyer's office.
The Indian Council of Medical Research is
drafting guidelines that would cover all aspects
of artificial reproduction.
The draft guidelines propose to permit surrogacy
within and outside families because, as
gynaecologist Nozer Sheriar, says, "Most egg
donors and surrogate mothers here are found
within the family."
As of today, says GaurangMehta, foundersecretary
of the National Association of Adoptive
Families, surrogacy is fraught with pitfalls
that legal adoption guards against.
"Legal adoption is irrevocable.This aspect is
absent in surrogacy," he says. "The name on the
baby's birth certificate will be that of the
surrogate mother," observes infertility expert
Aniruddha Malpani.
"If she decides not to give up the baby, nobody
can make her do it." India, he points out,has
opted for closed adoption—in which the child's
biological parents are not known—whereas
surrogacy is open adoption.
Surrogacy being a grey area, Dr Gautam
Allahbadia, of Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital,
advises doctors to sign a consent form with the
people involved to protect them from
medico-legal problems though, technically, even
the consent form does not provide complete
protection.
It can still be challenged in a court of law.
However, if the ICMR guidelines help make the
surrogacy process smoother, we may soon see
couples openly advertising for a surrogate
mother.
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