(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Surrogacy Regulation Bill
In a recent report, new major suggestions have been suggested on Surrogacy regulation bill. These suggestions have been presented by Select committee. The Surrogacy Regulation bill restricts commercial surrogacy and only allows altruistic surrogacy. The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha in August 2019, but was referred for re-assessment to the select committee in November 2019. It was done so because several Rajya Sabha members found certain clauses debatable.
In this DNS we will know about the Surrogacy regulation Bill and also about the changes suggested by the committee.
Before talking about the recommendations suggested in the bill, let us first know in brief about the Surrogacy regulation Bill.
The surrogacy regulation bill bans commercial surrogacy allowing only altruistic surrogacy. That means, the bill only allows close relatives to be the surrogate mothers. For opting surrogacy there are certain rules introduced in the new bill. The couples should not abandon the child later in any condition. The couple should be Indian and married for at least 5 years. There has been an age limitation for the female 23-50 years and male-26-55 years for opting surrogacy.
The surrogate must be a relative of the couple, as well as she must be married having a child of her own. Her age should be between 25-35 years and must not have been a surrogate earlier. On the health perspective she must be mentally and physically certifiably fit. The bill also mentions that a woman can become a surrogate only once.
Now let us know about the key recommendations by the Select committee.
- Allowing single women –widow or a divorcee and persons of Indian origin to avail themselves of surrogacy and increase insurance cover for the surrogate mother from 16 months to 36 months.
- The committee recommended removing the criteria of “close relative” surrogate as it reduces the availability of surrogate mothers and affects the genuine and needy persons. A “willing woman” can act as a surrogate and undergo surrogacy procedures as per the provisions of the ACT.
- The wait that is the period before opting for surrogacy or the marriage duration of 5years of the couple has also been omitted
- The surrogate mother will be compensated beyond medical expenses and insurance coverage including her nutritional requirements, maternity wear etc.
- The committee has asked the authorities of the central and state government to submit data of the number of surrogacy procedures, surrogacy clinics and all the other related aspects which will help in keeping track of surrogacy in the country.
The Surrogacy Regulation Bill is yet to be passed by the Rajya Sabha. The committee has held 10 meeting till now before releasing the suggestions. The committee comprised of 23 members with its Chairman as Bhupender Yadav. Now the report will further be scrutinized by the health ministry and accordingly changes will be made in the Bill before introducing it again in the parliament.
