Surrogacy a bane to Indian women

The Union government’s proposed ban on commercial surrogacy is a step in the right direction, although belated. ICMR served notices on October 10 to leading In Vtro Fertilisation (IVF) clinics and gave instructions on November 11 to Indian Mission abroad not to grant visas to couples to travel to India for the purpose of surrogacy. There is a hue and cry in the Indian media against the proposed commercial ban. In fact, surrogacy is banned in almost all advanced countries which discovered this technique. Our Indian doctors somehow learnt this technique and made it commercial.

Some feature articles in the Indian press proudly described it as a flourishing industry of Rs 13,000 crore and that 90% of the surrogacy cases in India are sponsored by foreigners. One feature article prominently described Anand, Gujarat, as a hub for surrogacy. The beneficiaries of this “Anand business hub” are hospitals, doctors, advocates, brokers and hotels, medical shops and taxi drivers. Now, look at the most pathetic and dark side of this business in India.It is the most poverty-stricken, illiterate, emaciated rural Indian women who are the targets for surrogacy.

They are undergoing this surrogacy at the risk of their health before and after pregnancy for a paltry sum of about Rs 2 lakh after cuts by middle brokers. These brokers continuously visit villages and lure them into business. If these women offer themselves for surrogacy, it is because of debts due to farming, unemployment, poverty and hunger. Imagine the pathetic plight of hapless women to undertake the risk of “rebirth” before and after pregnancy.

The fact that they offered surrogacy at the risk of their life “rebirth” speaks volumes of their poverty. It is an affront to the civilised India to encourage this practice. Most women must have suffered already having at least twice, to have two own children. These poor women will be treated like “queen” before delivery – housed in special homes, nutrition food, medical checkups, monthly allowances to their families and what not.

After delivery they will go back to their villages, the money is spent on clearing debts. Medical problems after delivery persist, but they have to work again in fields. Besides, they do have sensitive feeling about surrogate baby – how the baby is growing. Nothing is known about these surrogate mothers. This is the most pathetic state of the Indian motherhood.

Our urban strata is concerned only with earning money and worried as how to stop or circumvent ban. Unwanted concern about what happens to the already pregnant women if ban is implemented now is only a ploy to stop this ban. Definitely, the Indian government is intelligent enough to continue their pregnancy and hand over the surrogate babies to the sponsored parents.

Those who are propagating this surrogacy as industry should see Telugu movie, ‘Welcome Obama,’ directed and produced by Singitam Srinivasa Rao. To say a few lines about the movie: A foreign woman who sponsors surrogacy leaves the surrogate mother at the advance stage of pregnancy, as the doctors tell her the baby has defective organs. She advises the surrogate mother to leave the baby at an orphanage and promises to finance.

However, the surrogate mother pursues pregnancy, determined to have the baby irrespective of birth defects. It so happens that the baby boy is hale and healthy, grows up and naturally integrates with mother. The sponsored mother comes back, when she learns of the healthy boy and claims right on the five-year-old boy. Though the boy’s bonds with the Indian mother are strong, the latter on the advice of advocates hands over the child to the foreign woman, so that the boy get better life and education.

Even before the boy leaves India, he develops mother-home sickness and ultimately the foreign woman hands him back to the surrogate mother. A poignant cinema excellently narrates the ill-effects of surrogacy, which needs to be translated in all languages. Surrogacy should be banned at all costs to save the troubles, trials and tribulations of the Indian women. (Dr Nagaiah is a Senior Principal Scientist at Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad. Prof Srimannarayana is a retired Professor of Osmania University)

By Dr K Nagaiah & Prof G Srimannarayana