‘ART Bank’ makes it harder to bank on Indian surrogates

15.06.10

Low costs and poor regulations mean that foreign couples can easily commission surrogacy in India but an ‘ART Bank’, in the making, could change all that.

A legislation that is currently being drafted by Indian Government officials will ban IVF clinics from drafting private surrogacy agreements. A quasi-official body known as an “ART Bank” will be set up which will help match couples with surrogates and clinics.

The Law is also slated to make many changes including limiting pregnancies per surrogate to 5, banning women over 35 from acting as surrogates and making a pre-requisite for foreign couples to guarantee citizenship, of their respective countries, for their offspring.

India is widely being touted as the ‘capital of international surrogacy’. Loosely framed regulations have helped push India to this top spot. However, the Indian government is now determined to set right these poorly framed regulations which in conjunction with discrepancies in International Laws have been causing trouble for many foreign couples to take their offspring back home.

Moreover, the law is being seen as a move to protect a surrogate’s rights. Currently the amount a surrogate is paid varies from clinic to clinic and there are no regulations enforcing a minimum amount of payment to the surrogate.

The medical fraternity is sceptical of this law and Dr Nayana Patel, the face of the Indian rent-a-womb industry, is urging the government to keep the clinic’s interests in mind while drafting the legislation.