After much opposition, Centre is likely to make changes in the surrogacy bill passed by the cabinet. According to a CNN-News18 report, “top sources” said that the key changes included the widening of options for a surrogate parent and the probable removal of the clause which states that couples who already have a child cannot try for another one through surrogacy.
But alongside the changes, care will be taken to ensure that it does not become a commercial transaction. The draft bill says heterosexual couples with proven infertility can go for a surrogate mother, without money exchanging hands, if the woman is close relative but after experts said that this can lead to an increase in genetic disorders, the government may scrap this provision.
Also, as mentioned above the clause that says couples who already have a child cannot try for another one through surrogacy. This too could change, if those opting for surrogacy can provide a” good reason”.
According to reports, the other two provisions that are likely to be changed are the ones that provision that a couple can’t opt for surrogacy if they have already adopted a child; and that someone who has been a surrogate mother once in the past cannot do it a second time.
Last Wednesday, the Union Cabinet had cleared the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016, banning commercial surrogacy in India. The Bill bars foreigners, homosexual couples, people in live-in relationships and single individuals – making only childless, straight Indian couples married for a minimum of five years eligible for surrogacy.
The draft bill said eligible couples will have to turn to close relatives, not necessarily related by blood, for altruistic surrogacy where no money exchanges hands between the commissioning couple and the surrogate mother.
External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier defended the bill saying that it is within the legal framework and aligned with Indian values.
