AP-Telangana Women Comm seeks legislation on surrogacy

Hyderabad: Holding that surrogacy has become a commercial activity in India, the Chairperson of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Women's Commission today demanded enactment of a legislation to regulate it.

Surrogacy has become a commercial activity in India. Please don't treat women's womb as a commodity. There must be an Act which can regulate the activities of infertility clinics and the surrogacy industry which is concentrating only on earning money, Tripurana Venkataratnam told reporters in Hyderabad.

Those interested in having babies through surrogacy should have it through their family members and relatives, she said.

National Commission for Women and different departments of the government had on October 15 conducted a consultation in Delhi on surrogacy issues. A draft bill The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill 2014 is under consideration in Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for enactment of a legislation, she said.

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states Commission for Women would shortly hold a consultation with women representatives and NGOs and send their recommendations to the Centre.

She said that foreigners are able to exploit poor and illiterate women by getting cheap surrogate services through agents.

Surrogacy has been prohibited in several countries including Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey while some other countries like Brazil have partially prohibited it she said. Countries such as India, Belgium, Finland and Greece have no regulations at all.

Referring to a UN study in July 2012 on the economic scale of surrogacy in India, Tripurana said, the study estimated the business at more than USD 400 million a year, with over 3,000 fertility clinics across India.