Hyderabad: Senior police officials say that surrogacy can’t be regulated as there is no legislation in place that prohibits commercial surrogacy. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 was introduced in the Lok Sabha in November 2016.
The Cabinet approved the Bill, but it has not been passed yet so cases cannot be booked against any of the clinics in Hyderabad. The Bill seeks to completely abolish commercial surrogacy. Other provisions aim at cracking down on practises that encourage exploitation. After the raid on Kiran Infertility Clinic, West Zone police did not slap any charges against the management. “We could not book any cases for there is no law that prohibits surrogacy. Second, we left it to the (health) department to look into the matter,” said West Zone DCP A. Venkateswar Rao.
Under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, all surrogacy clinics will have to be registered, the surrogate mother cannot be paid, and there will be national and state surrogacy boards that will regulate the practice. Commercial surrogacy, abandoning the surrogate child, exploitation of surrogate mother, selling/ import of human embryo have been considered punishable by law. It will be compulsory for all registered clinics to maintain records for 25 years.
The Indian Council of Medical Research has guidelines to protect the surrogate mother and the commissioning parents. It prohibits sex-selective surrogacy, requires the birth certificate to only have the names of the commissioning parents, requires one of the commissioning parents to be a donor, requires a life insurance cover for the surrogate mother and ensures the right to privacy of the mother and the donor.
