Surrogacy in India seems to have always drawn a excessive amount of media interest, simply because the concept excites the public imagination. India seems to be in the news considering that it offers "wombs on hire". Surprisingly, several infertile couples seem to be arriving to India to possess surrogacy treatment, simply because it's so much cheaper here than in the West. A few activists see red, due to the fact they think this can be a form of "reproductive prostitution" - they think women are being marginalized and reproduction is actually being treated as a commodity, since money is changing hands.
Whereas I feel surrogacy is a legitimate form of treatment, my main worry that presently there is no legal safety for the parents in India. The only authorized identification of the child's parentage these days is the birth certificate - and it's only the birth mother's identify that can appear on this. These days, genetic parentage is not really recognized. Precisely what this indicates is that if the birth mother chooses not to hand over the newborn after birth, there is actually nothing the infertile couple ( intending parents) or the doctor may do, no matter whatever legal documents they may have signed, since these have got no legal bearing - the agreement is simply not valid!
Usually, the infertile couple plans to undertake the baby following birth, so they can claim it legally. However, adoption in India is a lengthy as well as complicated procedure - and at this time there is no system for a "directed adoption", which indicates there are no way the parents, could claim the baby legally. This signifies that either they do a "black-market adoption"; or the doctor puts a fake name ( not the birth mother's, but the surrogate's) on the birth certificate!
In order to correct this kind of anomaly, the government is now considering to pass a legislation to control this. What concerns me is that the law has several loopholes in it. The most worrisome is that effective a "legal black-market adoption" funnel has now been opened up! An deceitful doctor could handover an unwanted new born baby (from an single mother, for example) to a rich infertile couple, and declare that it was actually genetically their own since they had performed surrogacy treatment! Not only would this permit couples to avoid the regular legal adoption channels, it would create an avenue for a few crooked doctors to produce a lot of quick cash!
