India has taken a decisive step to ban "rent-a-womb" type surrogacy businesses with the passing of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill that ensures the effective regulation of surrogacy, prohibits commercial surrogacy, and allows altruistic surrogacy for needy Indian infertile couples. The Bill permits surrogacy only for couples who cannot conceive.
As per the proposed legislation which requires approval from the Upper House of the Parliament before it becomes an enforceable law, the surrogate mother must be a "close relative" of the couple.
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"Even NGOs and civil society were of the opinion that commercial surrogacy must be stopped. Exploitation of surrogate mothers was also an issue. The government decided to come out with the Bill keeping the Indian ethos in mind so that exploitation of surrogate mothers could be stopped", JP Nadda, India's Health Minister said during the debate in the Lower House on Wednesday.
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Some female parliamentarians had strongly demanded that surrogacy for those who use it in order to keep their bodies in shape be ended.
"We must vehemently stop fashion surrogacy that is taking place in our country. I don't want to take names, but there are film stars and relatives of film stars who are using surrogate mothers only because they don't want their body figures to be 'destroyed.' This type of fashion surrogacy must be stopped", Kakoli Ghosh a supporter of the ban said in the parliament.
The usual fee for surrogacy is around $12,000 to $20,000 in India which is around 1/6th of that in developed countries like the USA.
