The Centre is set to inform the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it will soon ban commercial surrogacy and not permit couples from foreign countries to have children through surrogate mothers in India.
After a high-level meeting, the Modi government has instructed solicitor general Ranjit Kumar to inform the Supreme Court that India will no longer be the 'surrogacy capital of the world'.
Kumar will, however, clarify that surrogacy will still be available as an option to childless Indian couples. In another decision, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has decided to withdraw its 2013 notification allowing free import of human embryo to India for artificial reproduction.
The move to curtail commercial surrogacy is an ill-considered one. After all, both sides of the bargain— would-be mothers unable to bear children themselves and poor women offering their wombs as surrogates for these women — gain from it. One gains a child they would not otherwise be able to have and another money that they desperately need. And it is not as if the arrangement hurts any third person. Such arrangements should be allowed to continue, therefore, with proper checks and regulation in place to ensure that there is no exploitation of the poor in the process. Banning them benefits no one and certainly hurts some.
After a high-level meeting, the Modi government has instructed solicitor general Ranjit Kumar to inform the Supreme Court that India will no longer be the 'surrogacy capital of the world'.
Kumar will, however, clarify that surrogacy will still be available as an option to childless Indian couples. In another decision, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has decided to withdraw its 2013 notification allowing free import of human embryo to India for artificial reproduction.
The move to curtail commercial surrogacy is an ill-considered one. After all, both sides of the bargain— would-be mothers unable to bear children themselves and poor women offering their wombs as surrogates for these women — gain from it. One gains a child they would not otherwise be able to have and another money that they desperately need. And it is not as if the arrangement hurts any third person. Such arrangements should be allowed to continue, therefore, with proper checks and regulation in place to ensure that there is no exploitation of the poor in the process. Banning them benefits no one and certainly hurts some.
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