The Union Cabinet has passed what is being called the ‘Surrogacy Bill’ to regulate the practice of surrogacy in India.  There have been many conflicting opinions expressed on the Bill.  What is our Party’s stand on the provisions of the Bill?
Vijay Sinha, Mumbai

THE union cabinet passed the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 on August 25.  The government has said that the Bill will be sent to a select committee before it is placed for a vote in parliament.  This is a very essential move.  All sections of society and various organisations should be given the opportunity to submit their suggestions, amendments and comments for discussion in the select committee before it submits its final report.
Surrogacy is a medical procedure that a growing number of childless couples or individuals opt for in order to have a child.  The procedure involves the bearing of the child by a woman who has had fertilised eggs (which may or may not belong to the woman who will eventually become the mother of the surrogate child) injected in her womb.  While surrogacy does bring much happiness to many, unfortunately the desperation of the childless to have a child is being exploited by many medical practitioners to make huge profits.  They do not only charge for the medical services involved in the process of surrogacy but they also ‘arrange’ surrogate mothers, mostly poor, illiterate or less educated needy women.  While these women are paid for the service they render, it is also a fact that those making the arrangements extract huge ‘fees’.  In this way the need that many who cannot bear children themselves feel for having a child is used for profiteering and a medical service that fulfills a human need has been transformed into a commercial business that also involves the exploitation of different kinds of very disadvantaged women.
Our Party has always demanded that surrogacy be regulated and not be treated as a commercial transaction.  The fact that surrogacy is often referred to as the ‘rent-a-womb’ phenomenon is proof of the crassness with which it is being treated.  It is important to remember that commercial surrogacy is banned in many countries like Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Thailand and Nepal.
A welcome feature of the Bill proposed by the government is that it enunciates clearly that there can be no commercial transactions involved in the process of surrogacy except the charges involved in the provision of necessary medical services.  This is extremely necessary to protect women from the poorest sections of society from being exploited.  Their poverty and vulnerability are taken advantage of by those who have extracted huge profits from the ‘Surrogacy Business’.  This business is valued at over Rs 2500 crores a year in our country.  We do not agree with those who are insisting that poor women should be allowed to exercise their ‘choice’ in this matter and that surrogacy should be seen as a livelihood opportunity for them.  This is completely unacceptable.  The revelations of the horrible effects of the ‘organ trade’ on the health, bodies and lives of poor people should be argument enough for demanding that the ‘freedom’ to sell organs or to ‘rent a womb’ cannot and should not be permitted.
There are some provisions of the Bill, however, that we are not in agreement with.  We do not agree with the denial of the right to father/mother a surrogate child to single men and women and to same-sex couples.  It should be noted that people belonging to these categories are allowed to adopt children.  In that case why are they being denied the right to a surrogate child?  These provisions smack of a regressive mind-set and the statement made by Sushma Swaraj, a member of the group of ministers that has drafted the Bill, that the social and cultural mores of our country had been taken into consideration while including these provisions is proof of this.  
The Bill also bans a couple who has had one natural or surrogate child from having another.  It also says that a couple can opt for surrogacy only after five years of marriage and sets minimum age restrictions on the parents.  These restrictions seem quite illogical.
We have demanded on many occasions that the health of the surrogate mother and the legal rights of the child given birth to by this procedure should be safeguarded very stringently.  We feel that the Bill does not pay sufficient attention to these crucial issues especially to the issue regarding the health of the surrogate mother.  
As was only to be expected, various organisations and associations of those who have been profiting from the surrogacy business have raised a hue and cry about the provisions of the Bill.  Not only are they emphasising that commercial surrogacy is a livelihood choice for a woman who wants to improve her own life and the lives of her family members but are also resorting to all kinds of specious arguments that the stringent measures incorporated in the Bill will lead to religious conversions and abandonment of wives who cannot have children.  The remedy for the ill-treatment that women in our society often face when they are accused of not being able to bear children certainly does not lie in unregulated, commercial surrogacy.   
There is a very real danger of powerful lobbies that profit from unregulated surrogacy exerting influence on the government to relax the effort made by the Bill to stop surrogacy from being equated with a commercial transaction.  Our Party will certainly oppose all such attempts and will encourage others to do the same.