Has India become a factory for babies: surrogacy capital of the world?
India the world’s outsourcing capital seems to have added a new product to the repertoire of products and services it provides abroad – wombs for surrogacy and eggs! This may come as a surprise especially as the nation grapples with issues of female infanticide and abandoned girl children. Experts peg India’s surrogacy industry’s also known as the ‘ baby factory’s’ total worth at a staggering 1.5 billion pounds ( 2.4 bn dollars or Rs 13,033 cr). The most popular ‘clients’ for this service by far are Britons; according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph. According to the media report there are thousands of unregulated clinics and Britons reportedly pay an average of 25,000 pounds (Rs 21 lakh) for each procedure.
‘It is estimated that 2,000 births to surrogate mothers took place in the country last year, with most experts agreeing that Britain is the biggest single source of people who want to become parents in this way,’ the report said. ”Britain may account for as many as 1,000 births last year in India. In contrast there were 100 surrogate births recorded in Britain last year”, it added. Indian women were reportedly paid up to 6,000 pounds (Rs 5.1 lakh) to either donate eggs or/and carry babies which British infertility laws ban. The report adds people bending the rules include bankers, senior civil servants, MNC execs and even National Health Service doctors.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research Guidelines dealing with surrogacy and Artificial Reproductive Techniques (ART), the only expenses that pertain to or incurred during the pregnancy period should be paid and ART centres are not allowed to be the benefactor of such payments. Also documentary evidence detailing all financial transactions of these procedures needs to be maintained. India is the surrogacy capital of the world thanks to legal loopholes, relatively low costs (Wikipedia suggests that the total is just 1/3rd the expense this procedure would cost in England) and lack of proper guidelines. Artificial reproduction techniques have become more acceptable recently thanks toAamir Khan and Kiran Rao openly admitting that they had a baby via IVF and Vicky Donor which has really popularised sperm donation!
The sheer scale of the “baby factory” phenomenon is now causing concern at the highest levels of the Indian government. The country’s leading expert on the infertility industry said the industry dwarfs any in the rest of the world.
Dr Radhey Sharma, who was commissioned by the Indian government to study the boom in fertility treatments in preparation for legislation to regulate the industry, disclosed the findings of his research and said nobody in the country actually knew the scale of the “baby factories”.
“Nobody in India actually knows for sure how many babies are born through these commercial enterprises and how many places are involved,” he said.
“I have the database of some 600 IVF clinics in India, but that is not a complete list. There could be around 400 more clinics operating without any regulation.”
A report in a respected Indian newspaper earlier this year claimed the city of Hyderabad has at least 250 clinics that claim to offer IVF but only 11 of which were voluntarily registered with the authorities.
Dr Sharma said: “Nobody could have envisaged the sharp increase in Indian surrogacy for foreigners and we accept this will not slow down, but in fact get more popular.”
Dr Sharma has chaired a committee which has drawn up proposals for industry standard. It would guarantee safety standards for the first time, outlaw sex selection, forbid women capable of childbirth making use of surrogacy and set up the first register of clinics, with a regime of inspections and sanctions for those which fail them.
However the legislation has yet to be considered by India’s parliament and it could be many years before it becomes law. Dr Sharma’s committee has called for urgent action.
[Courtesy: health.india.com]