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several clauses of the bill. The committee ultimately
recommended allowing any “willing woman” and
not just a “close relative” to be a surrogate, remov-
ing the five-year waiting period, waiving the require-
ment for an infertility certificate, allowing widows
and divorced women to avail themselves of surro-
gacy services, and extending insurance coverage for
surrogates from 16 months to 36. In February 2020,
the union Cabinet—the government’s most senior
ministers—approved these recommendations, which
will likely be passed by the upper house of Parlia-
ment this year and become national law.
Still, the bill would ban anything except altruis-
tic surrogacy, with the Modi government insisting
that the commercial- surrogacy business takes ad-
vantage of low-income women. “While many cou-
ples benefited from surrogacy facilities in India,
the practice has persisted without any legal frame-
work,” Bhupender Yadav, a member of Parliament
who chaired the select committee, wrote in a Feb-
ruary 2020 Hindustan Times column. “Under these
circumstances, there have been many reported inci-
dents of unethical practices surrounding surrogacy.
These practices include the exploitation of surro-
gates, abandonment of children born out of surro-
gacy, and the import of human embryos and gam-
etes.” The new legislation, he argued, would protect
surrogates from exploitation and protect the rights
of children born through surrogacy.
Women’s-rights advocates agree that the indus-
try needs more regulation. The issue with the pro-
posed law, they say, is that it fails to address the main
problems with current practices and does not take
into account the interests or voices of surrogates.
They are primarily concerned with the mandate that
makes only “altruistic” surrogacy legal, arguing that
it will lead to women being pressured into becom-
ing surrogates against their will. “We believe very
strongly that altruism in a patriarchal society like
ours could lead to coercion,” says Sarojini N, founder
of Sama, the Delhi-based group working on women’s
health issues. Not remunerating a woman for repro-
ductive labor is not enough to prevent exploitation,
she argues.
In the recommendations she submitted to the
government in 2014, Kumari had pushed for legal
protection for the surrogates and intended parents,
guaranteed medical insurance for the surrogates and
a minimum amount of compensation. “We never
wanted the ban, but we wanted the total protec-
tion of the women who are offering the womb for
a child,” she says. “Banning never works. It hasn’t
worked for drugs or alcohol. How will it work for
something which is so human?”
Usha Vijay Parmar’s experience is a common one
in India, where uneducated women with few other
employment opportunities sign up to be surrogates,
live away from home for the duration of their preg-
nancy and agree to medical procedures without a full
understanding of their health risks. Parmar’s hus-
band died three years ago from liver failure brought
about by alcoholism. Since then, she has struggled
to keep up with the expenses of taking care of her
mother-in-law and two children; the $161 she makes
each month through farming and raising cattle is
spent on household expenses, leaving her with little
savings. When her aunt—who had previously been a
surrogate at Akanksha—suggested she do the same,
Parmar didn’t understand what that meant. Her aunt
told her that it was similar to how they insert sperm
in buffaloes, a process Parmar was familiar with.
Parmar visited the hospital two years ago with her
aunt and submitted her application to be a surrogate,
along with her national identity card, birth certifi-
cate, her husband’s death certificate and passport-First-time surrogate
Heena Sodaparmar
combs the hair of
Neha Makwana,
who is at Akanksha
for the second time
to save money for
her familyWorld