NEW DELHI, July 15:
A Bill to constitute National Surrogacy Board, State Surrogacy Boards and appointment of appropriate authorities for regulation of the practice and process of surrogacy was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
The proposed Bill will ensure effective regulation of surrogacy and prohibit commercial surrogacy.
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 was introduced by Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan.
As per statement of objects and reasons of the Bill, ” Due to lack of legislation to regulate surrogacy, the practice of surrogacy has been misused by the surrogacy clinics, which leads to rampant of commercial surrogacy and unethical practices in the said area of surrogacy.
In the light of above, it had become necessary to enact a legislation to regulate surrogacy services in the country, to prohibit the potential exploitation of surrogate mothers and to protect the rights of children born through surrogacy.”
The Bill provides to allow ethical altruistic surrogacy to the intending infertile Indian married couple between the age of 23-50 years and 26-55 years for female and male respectively.
The intending couples should be legally married for at least five years and should be Indian citizens to undertake surrogacy or surrogacy procedures.
The surrogate mother should be a close relative of the intending couple and should be an ever married woman having a child of her own and between the age of 25-35 years. The Bill provides that the surrogate mother shall be allowed to act as surrogate mother only once.
The Bill provides that no person, organisation, surrogacy clinic, laboratory or clinical establishment of any kind shall undertake commercial surrogacy, issue advertisements regarding commercial surrogacy, abandon the child born through surrogacy, exploit the surrogate mother and contravention of the said provisions shall be an offence punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than ten years and with fine which may extend to Rs. Ten lakh. (UNI)
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