The latest bill on surrogacy cleared by the Union Cabinet highlights its proposal to ban the brisk ‘rent-a-womb’ business and support altruistic surrogacy instead. In the process, however, it ends up barring certain sections of society from taking recourse to parenthood by similar ways.
On grounds of humanity, every individual may have a natural right to either father or mother a child, be it biologically, through adoption, via surrogacy, IVF (in vitro fertilisation) or any other scientific and technological method for that matter. But when this path to foster a new life becomes a lucrative commercial trade to mint scores of money, exploit poor women with the lure of finance, abort the girl child for desire of boys to continue one’s familial lineage or even abandon the baby born of surrogacy after a point of time as “unwanted”, then problems start aggravating.
The latest bill on surrogacy cleared by the Union Cabinet highlights its proposal to ban this brisk “rent-a-womb” business and support altruistic surrogacy instead. In the process, however, it ends up barring certain sections of society from taking recourse to parenthood by similar ways. As a result, the announced bill has drawn mixed reactions from different quarters.
While activists and crusaders fighting in favour of “controlled surrogacy” are content about the scanner put on corruption and the illicit means to fleece unsuspecting innocents by a chain of middlemen, modern, enlightened mindsets that dream of a stereotype-free world, on the other hand, term the bill blinkered, dogmatic and invasive to one’s personal choices. They are shaken to the core after learning that the bill is set to keep singletons, divorcees, foreigners, homosexuals out of its purview and aims to support only Indian couples, legally married for five years with no issue. Moreover, altruistic surrogacy demands a close relative (either married or widowed with at least one healthy child) to stand in as surrogate, in lieu of an unknown outsider.
“My daughter is wedded for 15 long years, yet she is childless and her in-laws are dead against the decision of either going for adoption or borrowing IVF procedures to bring home a newborn. In such a situation, how can anybody from within the family itself bail her out of the crisis!” rues 60-year-old homemaker Sujata Bhatia from Bengaluru.
“Although she dearly loves her nephews, niece and other children of the house but deep down in my heart, I do understand the importance of having your own brood as a mother. It’s not solely about property rights but finding an emotional succour too,” further laments the ageing mother for her 37-year-old daughter, who has already developed some health hazards due to this mental depression.
Often these closed-door conjugal secrets of infertility and impotence are discussed in hushed tones in between the four walls of a bedroom and remain confined to the husband-wife alone. “It is a matter of shame for many, especially in a conservative set-up,” observes a sociologist.
Chennai-based entrepreneur couple Narendra and Lakshmi Iyer gladly witnessed their world getting complete when a tiny two-month old Sreeja swaddled in her new-found papa’s proud arms crossed the threshold of their plush living room to instantly convert it into a sweet home. The bundle of joy was a welcoming relief to her parents, desperately yearning for a child and the wait seemed endless to their tired eyes and nerves.
“The moment we stepped in, she narrowly looked around the house once and immediately let open her sharp baby bawl. I knew my patient prayers were answered,” says a smiling Mrs Iyer. “Adoption is a blessing and not a curse. We never wasted a trice to dwell our thoughts on strait-laced concepts like gene pool or bloodline. We are lucky to have her in our life by the God’s grace,” shares Mr Iyer, not forgetting to add that now their daughter has grown up to be a bright five-year-old kid.
Although large joint units have long been replaced by small nuclear clusters, yet adoption is still a taboo in many orthodox families injected with conventional ideologies. On one hand, progressive parents want to ensure a healthy environment to childrearing. On the other, blind superstitions hinder a childless couple from adding glee to their nest with a cute, adorable baby.
“Adoption has its own challenges to meet with. But one good outcome of socio-legal amendments over the years is breaking those draconian, customary barriers and allowing single mothers to lend an identity to their children in absence of a father. Similarly, it is proven that a father too can take double parental responsibilities to nurture a child,” notes Kolkata-based psychologist and research scholar Sanchita Pakrashi.
“I see this change as a very positive trend. You see, today’s upwardly mobile youngsters have radically different set of notions and philosophies to deal with. Their thought patterns are quite revolutionary as compared to their ancestors. They are the best judge of their existent circumstances and observe things in an unusual light,” she further acknowledges.
Good news is that Pune-based software engineer Aditya Tiwari became India’s youngest single adoptive parent earlier this year, when he brought home special child Binny, whom he now calls Avnish. Six-months later, Tiwari gets hitched to a girl who happily accepts Binny as her son in life and is now a doting mother to the little cherub.
Dr Abha Majumdar, one of the top fertility doctors at Sir Ganga Ram multi-speciality hospital in Delhi, reports a whopping figure of 1,500 applications per annum requesting for IVF and approximately three-four cases of surrogacy every month, which she suggests, “is a pretty impressive statistic”. “We are also ethically very particular about hiring Indian surrogates to help out Indian couples nestle and nourish a young one instead of foreigners trooping in to avail the same service,” informs the reputed gynecologist. However, this will slightly alter if the draft passed in the Parliament is enacted as law in the near future.
