Exclusive: A Record Rise Of The Surrogates In India

By Kishore Dhillon / New Delhi

As renting wombs &other assistive technologies take a popular turn, here’s how celeb cases bring it to the limelight. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan cannot be faulted for raising walls of privacy over the birth of his baby boy, but that hasn't stopped people from talking about the trend that baby Khan has kicked off. Surrogacy, an alternative reproductive option that was considered a last resort and mostly a hush- hush choice of couples, is slowly hopping across to the mainstream.

Some of the credit for making people less inhibited about discussing surrogacy must go to Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao. They spoke candidly about their baby, Azad, who they had through a gestational carrier. “ Surrogacy is slowly becoming a popular trend in India. Top quality equipment, favourable pricing and a hassle- free ‘ legal’ process has made it ideal for couples who fail to conceive naturally,” says Dr. Rita Bakshi, senior IVF Consultant at Delhi’s International Fertility Centre.

Surrogacy Boom in India

By Shuriah Niazi & Neeta Lal

Smaller cities in India, such as Bhopal and Indore in Madhya Pradesh, are frequented by childless couples from other parts of India and even abroad.

Unable to bear children for various reasons, such couples travel to these cities with hope. Bhopal and Indore have certainly gained popularity as a result of an increasing number of women agreeing to surrogacy (carrying another couple's embryo to full term), the many specialized Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinics, and the comparatively affordable treatment.

When Bhopal residents Rajesh Shrivastava, 41, and his wife, Usha, 37, were unable to conceive after 12 years of marriage, they decided to go in for ART (this includes techniques such as In-Vitro Fertilization) and surrogacy. The couple visited the ART centre run by Dr Dinesh and Dr Shefali Jain in Indore.

"Usha had suffered six miscarriages in 12 years. Initially, the idea of a surrogate did not appeal to them. But they agreed when one of their relatives came forward," reveals Dr Shefali Jain. This was two years ago. Now, Rajesh and Usha are proud parents of twin daughters. The treatment cost the couple just Rs 150,000 (US$1=Rs 39.90).

Apart from the domestic rush (the Jains alone attend to around six surrogate queries a month), a large number of couples from abroad also travel to Bhopal and Indore to fulfill their desire for a child. Several American, Russian and British women are duly registered with the Bhopal Test Tube Baby Centre for the procedure. Often, couples have to wait for as long as eight months to a year for their turn.

Their reasons for coming to India are varied. For some, the treatment is far too expensive in their own country; for others, their national laws do not permit surrogacy. Recently, a 37-year-old Russian came to Bhopal as the expense for surrogacy is prohibitive in her country - between Rs 15,00,000 and 20,00,000 - as compared to the Rs 200,000 cost in Bhopal.

Dr Randhir Singh, Director, Bhopal Test Tube Baby Centre, elaborates, "Women source information about the availability of surrogate mothers in Bhopal over the Internet and then contact us. In foreign countries, surrogate mothers are not easy to find. Therefore, the interest in India."

Even as an increasing number of childless couples from overseas come to India, legal experts express their reservations. Many foresee hurdles after the child is born and caution that surrogacy should be carefully considered.

According to senior advocate Kirti Gupta, "At present, it is not difficult to have a baby through surrogacy in India because there is no law to control or regulate it. The technique is cheap, when compared to other countries, and surrogate mothers here charge comparatively less for the services."

As there are several clinics now that perform such services - gauged by the number of advertisements in the local media as well as on the Internet - it is easy to select a clinic. However, the real problem arises after the birth of the baby. In India, in the absence of any clear laws on the issue so far, foreigners are unable to get legal assistance when it comes to taking their child back to their home country.

Childless couples in India, too, must consider some issues. For example, whose name will be mentioned as parents on the birth certificate of the newborn or what should be done in case the surrogate mother refuses to hand over the child?

To lay such doubts to rest, clinics that provide ART facilities take recourse to the guidelines set by the Indian Council for Medical Research that state that the surrogate mother has to sign a contract with the childless couple. But even then, counter lawyers, it is not clear whether such a contract has any legal sanctity.

Doctors take their own precautionary measures. Dr Dinesh Jain says, "We allow a woman to become a surrogate only after we have fully checked her credentials and if we trust her. We also ensure that the child born is handed over to the childless couple."

In Indore, which has a population of 30,00,000, many women responded to an advertisement seeking surrogate mothers, placed in a leading Hindi daily. Within 24 hours of the advertisement having appeared, a dozen women had evinced an interest. Surprisingly, none enquired about the couple. Money was the overriding concern.

Women who are willing to undergo the procedure come from lower middle class backgrounds, are married, and are in need of money. So much so that, often, childless couples negotiate a better price as a result of the competition. Shweta Khanna, 35, from Indore was willing to be a surrogate mother. Initially, she asked for Rs 100,000. However, when another woman offered to do the same for Rs 75,000, Shweta had to settle for Rs 50,000. "I have been a surrogate mother before. This time I'll have no problem... my husband is also agreeable," she says. Most women insist on anonymity for fear of social stigma.

But amidst all the doubts and societal taboos, the number of childless couples wishing to have a child through this technique is on the rise. It is estimated that in Indore, which has 11 ART centres, around 200 childless couples have been treated over a period of three years.

Regulating the Surrogacy Boom
After years of trying and treatment, US-based couple Jason and Nancy are finally proud parents of a healthy baby girl. And their tiny bundle of joy, Tara, was delivered for them by Ashaben through a surrogacy arrangement at Kaival Hospital in Gujarat. An Israeli gay couple experienced similar joy when, at Mumbai's Hiranandani Hospital last September, they 'fathered' twins through a surrogacy programme.

Noted fertility expert Dr Indira Hinduja describes surrogacy as one of the well- accepted methods of assisted reproduction, that benefits patients who can't conceive or carry a pregnancy to term. "Such people can take the help of surrogates, who carry their child in the uterus and then hand it over to the genetic parents, post-delivery," she says.

Of late, there has been a growing demand for Indian surrogate babies from foreigners, infertile couples in India and even single mothers - making the country a preferred destination for such a service. As per the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) estimates, due to the upward spiral in the number of surrogacy cases, the reproductive sector in India is expected to rake in a whopping US $ six billion this year.

"After IT services," opines Dr Nisha Kathuria, a Delhi-based gynecologist / obstetrician, "it's now the turn of babies to be outsourced from India. In these times of globalization and market-driven economies, there's considerable demand for this service."

Indeed. And fuelling the demand is a slew of factors, including low medical costs and a competent workforce. According to Dr Anoop Gupta, Medical Director, Delhi IVF and Fertility Research Centre, the total cost of renting a womb in India works out to around US$10,000 as compared to about US$50,000 in the West. In the US, states the expert, surrogate mothers are typically paid US$15,000, while the agencies claim another US$30,000. In India, however, fertility clinics charge in the realm of US$2,000 to US$3,000 for the procedure, whereas a surrogate is paid anything between US$3,000 and US$6,000 - a fortune in a country where the average annual per capita income is US$500.

But, despite the demand, surrogacy has its share of critics in India due to the moral, legal and ethical debate that swirls around it. Opines lawyer/activist Preeti Katyar, "If surrogacy becomes an avenue by which women in richer countries choose poorer women in our country to bear their babies, then it is economic exploitation, a kind of biological colonization."

A factor that has contributed to the negative feeling is the lack of a definitive legal framework to deal with surrogacy and related issues. While commercial surrogacy is banned in many countries - including Italy, Australia, Spain and China - and permitted with restrictions in the US, France and Germany, the Indian government is yet to formulate any laws. In fact, the only guidelines, which regulate surrogacy - and the clinics that provide ART (Assisted Reproductive Techniques) - are the ones framed by the ICMR and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2005. But these, point out experts, are nebulous and patient -
and doctor - unfriendly.

For instance, Section 3.10 of the ICMR guideline states, "No relative or person known to the couple may act as a surrogate." This, experts believe, is ludicrous as it propels childless couples needlessly towards commercial surrogacy. In fact, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) experts say that in 90 per cent of the surrogacy cases in India, the mother is related to the childless couple while only in five per cent cases, the surrogacy is altruistic and in the remaining five per cent, commercial. So, infertile couples are forced to think twice before going in for it due to the costs involved, which is unfortunate as India is home to 14 per cent of the world's estimated 80 million infertile couples.

Then there is ambiguity about a surrogate mother's rights. Delhi-based lawyer Rita Row says, "The guidelines are skewed and thoughtless. There's very little to protect the interests of the surrogate mothers." The guidelines state that "a surrogate should be younger than 45 years" without mentioning the minimum age. So does that mean an 18-year-old, or someone even younger, can become a surrogate mother?

Also, what happens after the baby is born? "The biggest problem," explains Dr Gupta, "arises after the baby's birth. Foreigners are unable to get legal assistance when it comes to taking the child back home." According to the ICMR guidelines, a child born through surrogacy "must be adopted by the genetic (biological) parents unless they can establish through genetic (DNA) fingerprinting that the child is theirs." Ergo, the only option left open to them is to 'adopt' the baby - which is a very lengthy and cumbersome process in India.

The regulations don't provide legal protection to Indian parents, either. The only legal recognition of the child's parentage is the birth certificate, and it's only the birth mother's name that can be used for this purpose. Consequently, if the birth mother decides not to hand over the baby after birth, there's nothing the intending parents or the doctor can do about it.

Unsurprisingly, with such ambiguous regulations in place, surrogacy in India has become a dangerous playing field for unscrupulous middlemen who entice and push uneducated and poor women into surrogate motherhood. This practice also encourages the misuse of a surrogate child for terrorism, prostitution or unethical genetic engineering research.

India can take a few pointers from the US, which has strict regulations in place - the law there mandates that surrogate agreements be meticulously drawn out to delineate the responsibilities of intending parents as well as the surrogate. "But in India," says Dr Kathuria, "surrogacy has a high potential for abuse as the monetary stakes are high." Admits Dr Raman Prakash, a Mumbai-based psychologist who also counsels commissioning parents and surrogate mothers, "When anything is influenced by economics, there's invariably a dark side to it."

Experts believe that the basic problem is that people are not well informed about surrogacy and its related issues. For example, a surrogate's health is not given due priority. Fertility doctors are allowed to implant up to six embryos in a donor's womb - in other countries it's limited to three - which creates the risk of multiple pregnancies and can lead to severe complications, stillbirth or even the surrogate's death.

In many cases, the surrogacy option is used even when it is not necessary. "Sometimes patients have had repeated IVF failures or recurrent miscarriages," says Dr Kathuria. "Usually, a simple egg donation is enough rather than a more complicated surrogacy option."

Doctors agree that a mass awareness campaign is key to making the treatment more accessible to all. Many sensitive, surrogacy-related issues, too, need to be tackled on a priority basis. As Dr Asha Jaipuria, a social activist and NGO worker puts it, "Who ensures that the woman's unused eggs or embryos are not harvested/stored and then sold to couples who want fair-skinned children? Or to couples who don't have viable eggs/sperms?"

Moreover, some questions need urgent answers, such as: what happens if the surrogate dies during childbirth, is there due compensation for her motherless children in that case; and what about the postpartum psychological and emotional support for poor women surrogates?

There's also the issue of money. As the treatment is expensive and huge amounts of cash are involved, perhaps there should be a regular audit to oversee the funds distribution to the surrogates.

It's time the government seriously considers enacting a law to regulate surrogacy and related IVF/ART technologies in India to protect and guide couples going in for such an option. Without a foolproof legal framework, patients will invariably be misled and the surrogates exploited.

Outsourcing Pregnancy To Indian Women

By Hemlata Aithani

After IT outsourcing, it's now 'pregnancy outsourcing' that is on the rise in India. Childless couples and singles, especially from the US, Europe and Southeast Asia are looking to India with the hope of becoming parents.

There are others like working women who don't have time or can't afford to become mothers or who simply don't want to go through the physical changes and health issues that come with becoming pregnant, but strongly want to have babies. Single women and men are also finding surrogacy the best way to have their own children with the help of either a donated sperm or egg, as the case may require.

Indian surrogate mothers are in big demand. A surrogate mother is one who gets paid for carrying the babies of other couples. Surrogacy is the process by which an embryo (fertilised egg and sperm of the couple) is transferred to the surrogate mother's womb through in-vitro fertilisation or IVF.

Surrogacy is fast developing into a kind of profession. The requirements are simple: A surrogate must not be over 45 years and should test negative to life threatening and genetic diseases including, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and C and thalassemia. There's money to be had, it's for a short term period, and there is the satisfaction of bringing happiness to someone's life. The downside is that this is a largely unregulated sector and the rights of these women remain unprotected.

Mahua Dutta is a first-time surrogate. The 33-year-old from Delhi is helping a Frenchman by lending her womb. Her baby bump has started showing. She is little over than two months pregnant and has come for a regular check up at Delhi IVF & Fertility Research Centre in a posh area of the Capital. In this case, the parent-to-be is a single Frenchman.

Dutta will receive minimum Rs 3,50,000 (US$1=Rs 46.9) for becoming a surrogate mother. But it's not the money that this mother of a nine-year-old needs. Surrogacy satisfies her emotional needs.

When she told her husband, who works in an IT company and is currently in the US, about her wish to become a mother for the second time, he had immediately said no saying that another child would be a financial burden. "But the craving to become a mother kept growing strong in me, especially when I came to know I had a bleak chance of conceiving again after I went for a fibroid surgery in my uterus. Becoming a surrogate mother has reassured me that I'm not infertile," says Dutta. Moreover, she feels that she is "bringing happiness to someone's life."

Dutta may have opted to become a surrogate to satisfy her quirky maternal instincts, but for Preeti Singh (name changed) from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, it was a way to address her poverty.

She delivered a child for a British couple in September last year. Six months on, she came to the IVF Research Centre again to donate her eggs that fetched her Rs 25,000. Now she is thinking of going for surrogacy once again to ease her economic pressures and secure her children's future.

Thirty-year-old Singh has two children. Her husband is a driver and earns Rs 2,500 a month. "It was difficult to eke out two meals a day for the family," explains Singh.

Her life changed after she delivered the surrogate baby. The payment she received took care of all her pressing needs. "Our worry to get the next meal for our children was solved immediately. Later, we built two small rooms, bought a bike and saved some money in a bank," says Singh with a smile.

For Singh, the Rs 3,50,000 she received after nine months was a huge cache of funds that she could never imagine even earning in a lifetime. But for someone coming from the US or UK, this sum is a fraction of what they would have to pay to hire a surrogate in their own country.

"The cost of surrogacy in the US is about $80,000 whereas in India it's only $18,000. The cost of IVF is $15,000 in the US and in India it's $2,500," reveals Dr Anoop Gupta, Medical Director, Delhi IVF & Research Centre.

And it's this cheaper treatment that is making India a hot spot for those outside the country looking for fertility solutions or children through surrogacy.

Chui Sai Kit, 41, and his wife Zhang Zhenliang, 40, have come all the way from Hong Kong to Delhi IVF & Research Centre to have a baby through surrogacy. Zhenliang has a history of abortions, which she underwent while at the peak of her career. This was followed by multiple miscarriages. She can no longer conceive a baby. For the couple surrogacy is the only option left in order to conceive their own baby and coming to India was the "natural choice" for both of them.

"I looked up on the Internet and calculated the cost of surrogacy. India was comparatively cheaper than other countries and it's close by, just across the border," says Kit.

The couple has already held a round of meetings with the surrogate mother. They will be at the clinic for three to four weeks until the healthy egg and sperms are extracted from them, fertilised and the embryo is transferred to the surrogate mother's womb through IVF.

This is just one case. The Delhi clinic, which is always packed with patients looking for fertility treatment, gets an average of 20 clients every month who want babies through surrogacy.

According to Dr Gupta the trend has caught on in the last few years. His IVF clinic facilitated the first surrogate child in 1997. "In the beginning we did two or three cases in a year. Now we are doing over 50 surrogacy cases a year," he says.

So far, the clinic has helped in the conception of 4,000 babies through IVF and over 400 babies through surrogacy. About 90 per cent of their clients are foreigners. Even though in India commercial surrogacy is legal they do surrogacy on a case by case basis.

"We make our decision after talking to the expectant parents and observing their behaviour - whether they would be able to take care of their babies or not. And if we feel they won't, we refuse them. Recently we refused a gay couple as we thought both partners didn't fit the criteria of caring parents. We do facilitate surrogacy for gay and lesbians couples, single men and women, as well as straight couples of course," says Dr Gupta.

Apart from Delhi, Mumbai in Maharashtra and Anand in Gujarat are fast emerging as hubs for surrogate mothers and IVF clinics in India. The reasons for India emerging as a favourite destination for surrogacy are many. The country boasts of the best IVF services in the world and the fact that English is widely spoken makes it easier for foreigners to avail of medical services. Moreover, they cost almost one fifth of what it would in the West.

This unprecedented popularity is providing a fillip to medical tourism in India. According to Indian Council of Medical Research commercial surrogacy will grow from being a $445 million-a-year business, which it is at present, to a US$2.3 billion business by 2012, as per a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) case study.

But precisely because it is a booming sector, it also needs to be better regulated.

Why It’s Unfair To Ban Commercial Surrogacy?

Altruistic surrogacy alone will deprive many would-be parents of options. Earlier last month, a couple in our family successfully got custody of their newborn through surrogacy. Filled with emotional highs and lows, the past nine months left the parents-to-be disillusioned about the prevailing surrogacy practices. 

Following a successful embryo transfer, the surrogate, after receiving a hefty advance payment, went underground despite the formal facilitation of the process by a reputed gynaecologist. She appeared only a month after delivery to hand over the parents' prized possession. The blessed parents swiftly forgot their misery as soon as all the paperwork was completed and they received their little bundle of joy in their hands. After all, their dream of having their biological child had finally come true.

Special Report: Indian Celebrities on 'Surrogacy Spree'

By Rashmi Kalia / Chandigarh

Surrogate babies are in news, all thanks to the khans of the Bollywood. Not long ago, surrogacy was a hush-hush affair for childless couples in India, who would resort to staying low key for a number of months, while they planned a child through surrogacy, only to announce to the world that they had been blessed with a baby through natural means.

Burgeoning Surrogacy Industry In China Has Legal Issues

China has quietly emerged as one of the most active countries in the world when it comes to surrogacy.

More than four years after sparking a nationwide debate over its ethical and legal propriety, China’s surrogate mother industry seems to have found acceptability — if not respectability. In fact, wombs-for-rent businesses are thriving in the world’s most populous country, where some studies indicate an estimated one in eight couples face fertility problems. Reports of a secretive surrogate pregnancy service, operating in a legal “gray area,” were widespread in early 2006 and intermediary websites were recruiting volunteers despite a government crackdown.

Surrogacy And Homophobia: India Bans Gay Parents

Aditya Advani always knew that he wanted to have children. He also knew he was gay. Twenty years ago gay marriage was just a fantasy. Few gay couples had children – whether their own or adopted – even in the US where Advani had emigrated. But that did not deter him from bringing up the subject with potential boyfriends such as Michael Tarr, the man who is now his partner.

“The first question I asked Michael on our second date was do you want to have children?” he remembers.  At one point, he’d considered selling property to make his dream come true.

Last year Advani and Tarr became the proud fathers of twins in Delhi through surrogacy.

“It was about completing our family,” says Advani. “It was not a political thing.”

But it is about to become a “political thing” because the Indian government has just issued a diktat about who gets to have children via surrogacy and who doesn’t.

Antithesis of equality
Surrogacy will now require a medical visa. Only a man and a woman who have been married for at least two years will be granted one to come to India to go the surrogacy route. Gay couples and single foreigners are out of luck.

“Aditya and Michael are blessed. They are on the winning side,” says Dr Anoop Gupta, the IVF specialist who shepherded them through the surrogacy process. “If they had been late they would not have been able to have their babies.”

“This is clearly discrimination against same-sex couples,” says Anand Grover, Director of the HIV/AIDS Unit  of the Lawyers Collective. “There is a big challenge awaiting the government. It has to be tested in court.”

The Supreme Court is yet to rule on Section 377, the section of the Indian Penal Code that criminalized homosexuality. Until it does, Grover points out, the Delhi High Court verdict from 2009 still stands. That verdict held that Section 377 offended the guarantee of equality enshrined in the Constitution.

“It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is the antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of the very individual,” the justices said unequivocally in their judgement.

“Instead of  banning same sex couples from having children, they should have just banned surrogacy as a whole. Why this partiality?” says Dr Gupta angrily. He has had many same-sex couples from abroad come to him in his almost two decades in the business.

Dr PM Bhargava who helped draft the guidelines told the Times of India that Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines recognize only man-woman marriages. But Dr Gupta says the issue has nothing to do with one’s personal opinions about gay relationships.

“When gay couples are being recognized all over the world, we should do it too. The children are usually going to settle back in the country the couple came from anyway.”

The whole affair feels like a mean-spirited exercise in homophobia via bureaucracy.

“Basically they are trying to deny gay people from having children. It’s everyone’s birthright to have a child,” says Advani.

Misplaced priorities
In the name of protecting the child, the government already has stringent rules on who can adopt children from India. That’s slammed the door shut for many gay couples who really want to raise children. Now the government is closing the surrogacy option down for them as well.

In going after gay couples and single wanna-be parents, it’s missing the real issues says Vaishali Sinha who co-directed an award-winning documentary, Made in India, about the rent-a-womb business. Sinha spoke with many surrogate mothers while making her film.

“Overwhelmingly what we heard from the women was the lack of negotiating power and the desire for rights. Their conversations almost reflected also a desire to unionize,” she says. One woman told the story of how a surrogate only received 5000 rupees because she miscarried in the sixth month. Another complained how no one ever read the contract out to her. “If there’s a literate person in the room, they ask them to wait outside,” she said.

Sinha says over and over again women complained about “payment and lack of transparency in contracts.”  In her film, the American couple signed a contract saying they were paying $7000 to the Indian surrogate. The surrogate signed a separate contract where she was told she would receive $2000, most of which would be paid post-delivery.

The Harvard Business School is using the film as a case study in their curriculum on Ethics this spring.  But the  Indian government’s new announcements do nothing to grapple with these thorny problems. “(They) feel misplaced in their priority,” says Sinha. “I don’t know what is the interest of the government in this,” says Dr Gupta who says he makes sure the surrogate mothers he works with are safe and well-compensated.

Surrogacy is big medical tourism business in India. The fee for renting a womb here can be anything between $25,000 and $30,000 which is still one-third of what it costs in the west. The need of the hour was simple safeguards. Instead the home ministry has opted for moral grandstanding.

Two faces of one home ministry
Even more ironic is the fact that just last year the same home ministry refused to argue against the repeal of Section 377 in the Supreme Court. In fact it was deeply embarrassed when  Additional Solicitor General PP Malhotra told the court that homosexuality was “highly immoral.” A red-faced Home Ministry official had to rush to court to contradict him. Pressed as to why the government was taking different stands in different courts, the Attorney General admitted, “We have been enlightened by the High Court judgment.”

Now that same home ministry, albeit under a different minister, is putting out blatantly anti-gay guidelines.

“I am not surprised,” says Grover. “Probably some bureaucrat decided and it went through. There is no unity in the government. I don’t know if the home minister even knows about this.”

The government actually has an Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill 2010, arrived at after years of consultation, that it’s never tabled in parliament. Clinics like Dr Gupta’s have been following the guidelines in that draft bill even though it has not become law. Dr Gupta leafs through that document to find the section that clearly allowed unmarried couples and single persons to have children through surrogacy. Instead of making things clearer, the newest announcements have just made them murkier for all concerned.

Advani says it makes him wish there was a gay lobby in India that could oppose a measure like this with full force. He says he didn’t just have his children in India because as he puts it, Indian clinics had “a better package”. “I wanted them to have an Indian sense of identity,” he says. “I wanted to have them here because I have a support network here. My mother is here. My brother is here.” His mother even tracked down Dr. Gupta for him.

Khush ho?
To date it’s been a great experience for Advani and Tarr. Everyone from the neighbours to the household help have been wonderfully supportive. Even officials at the Foreigner Regional Registration Office were friendly. They had never dealt with an Indian and an American gay couple before and asked him to bring Tarr to the office. “They just wanted to see him. I remember them asking curiously ‘aap dono ek doosre ke saath khush ho? (pun unintended).’”

While the country is making baby steps in trying to move ahead, the home ministry has decided to take a big leap backwards, writing in discrimination where none existed.

Despite his disappointment, Dr Gupta sees a glimmer of a silver lining.

“In one way the government is at least acknowledging a gay couple. That’s something,” he says. “In the days to come every country that allows LGBT relationships will have to give recognition to surrogacy.”

And if this new surrogacy ban is overturned it court, the reverse could become true as well.

The Baby Factory: Surrogacy, The Rich Business In Gujarat

By Aakaar Patel / Gandhinagar

In a cramped bylane off Station Road in Anand, men camp beneath the banyan tree, or perch on a bench waiting for their women to complete their business at an adjacent clinic. Foreigners and Indians, all couples, are dropped off by taxis at the entrance, husbands holding wives by the hand. India's cooperative milk capital has also turned into its surrogacy hub: The Sat Kaival Hospital and Akanksha Infertility Clinic run by Dr Nayana Patel, 55, and her husband Hitesh, 57, churns out 30 babies on average every month.

Special Report: 'New Born Babies For Sale In Gujarat'

By Aakar Patel / INN Bureau

A case of human trafficking against Dr Bharat Atit, a gynaecologist in Ahmedabad, has brought to light the seamy side of surrogacy and adoption in India. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch says Atit sold two babies to a childless couple from Porbandar, who were under his treatment, for Rs.8 lakh.

The crime branch police stumbled upon the case while investigating a rape complaint filed by Manjula Thakur, aka Mona, of Ahmedabad against a Rajkumar Yadhav last July. The police said Rajkumar was Manjula's boyfriend and that she filed a false complaint after they quarrelled over money she had received for selling her infant son.

An Enquiry: The Right to Abort in 'Surrogacy Contracts'

This article makes an enquiry into the right to abort in surrogacy contracts as visualised by the bill on Assisted Reproductive Technology drafted by the Indian Council of Medical Research and introduced in Parliament in 2010. It argues that the bill's anti-abortion clause raises important questions of ethics, fundamental rights as well as legal remedies, if any, in the event of a breach of contract.

Surrogacy is a contract for services which are highly personal in nature, and which are intended to bring social and familial contentment to the commissioning parents through childbirth.

Wombs For Rent: Surrogate Mothers Tell Their Tales

As baby Lili celebrates her first birthday in Australia, far away in India her surrogate mother recalls the day the child was born — and on whom she never laid eyes.

‘I averted my gaze,’ says Seita Thapa, recounting her experience of giving birth at the Surrogacy Centre India clinic in New Delhi last February on behalf of a gay male couple who used an egg donated from another woman.

‘Why would I want to see the child? — I have my own children,’ said the mother of two teenagers aged 16 and 18, adding that the clinic gives courses that ‘prepare us mentally for the fact it’s not our baby’.

Commercial surrogacy is a booming industry in India with legions of childless foreign couples looking for a low-cost, legally simple route to parenthood.

While the Indian government has been pushing the country as a medical tourism destination, the issue of wealthy foreigners paying poor Indians to have babies has raised ethical concerns in many Indian minds about ‘baby factories’.

The Confederation of Indian Industry, a leading business association, estimates the industry now generates more than $2 billion in revenues annually.

In a bid to silence critics, India recently issued rules barring foreign gay couples and singles from using surrogates, drawing sharp criticism from rights advocates and fertility clinics who called the move discriminatory, but the industry remains otherwise unregulated.

Clinic owners deny ill-treatment of mothers, saying it is in their interest to treat the women well in order for them to have healthy babies.

Thapa, 31, who has the jet-black hair and almond eyes of the Indians of the northeast, said she has no doubt what she did was right in allowing the Australian couple to use her womb to fulfil their dream of parenthood.

‘I wanted to be a surrogate mother because I wanted to deposit money into an account for my children for their future. I also wanted to help parents who cannot have children,’ Thapa said. ‘I am proud to have given birth to a beautiful baby. ‘The baby and parents are in my prayers forever. I feel like part of the family,’ added the former cook, her eyes suddenly bright with tears.

She refused to say how much money she earned from the surrogacy but says she wants to start a second pregnancy in April. The clinic told AFP the mothers get $6,000 from the $28,000 total surrogacy procedure cost.

During her pregnancy, Thapa lived with her husband in accommodation in New Delhi rented by the Surrogacy Centre India clinic, with over 100 other surrogates.

Thapa’s own children in their hometown of Darjeeling never knew their mother was pregnant. ‘I didn’t tell them so as not to disturb their studies,’ she said.

In 2012, 291 babies were born in the clinic that opened in 2008. They now live in 15 different countries, including Canada, Australia, Japan, Norway and Brazil.

In New Delhi and across India, there are dozens of clinics like the Surrogacy Centre but many refuse to open their doors to the media.

According to Dr Shivani Sachdev Gour, director of the centre, the women recruited never have the desire to keep the baby they have carried for nine months.

‘They have their own children, they’ve finished building their families,’ she said, calling people who oppose surrogacy ‘ignorant’. ‘They should come here to meet parents who dream of having a child. How can they deny them this right?’

Marcia, a 40-year-old Brazilian who lives in Luxembourg, is one such case. After trying for three years, Marcia has just arrived with her husband in New Delhi to sign a contract with the clinic.

‘When I look at the photographs of all these babies in the waiting room, I want to cry,’ she told INN, refusing to reveal her full name because she has not told her family about her step. ‘I’d rather not meet the surrogate mother who is chosen — especially since it is not certain the pregnancy will be successful. We’ve already had so much disappointment.’

She said she will initially attempt to have her own embryos transferred into the womb of the surrogate mother but if that fails, she will opt for an ‘egg donation’. ‘At first it was difficult to get used to the idea of another woman carrying my child, but if this is the only solution, then we will have a baby this way — it’s like a miracle,’ Marcia said.

Gour said the clinic organises counselling sessions for the surrogate mothers to stress the importance of eating nourishing food, adding the majority of the women want to repeat the experience.

Mamta Sharma, 29, from one of India’s poorest states, Uttar Pradesh, has been a surrogate mother twice, most recently last year for an Australian couple. ‘Everything has changed in my life with the money I got,’ said the mother of four children who invested her earnings in a new house.

Shah Rukh And Gauri Khan Expecting Their 'Third Child'?

By Niloufer Khan / Mumbai

Shah Rukh Khan is back in news. For more reasons than one. First, the trailer of his upcoming film Chennai Express was released this week. And a couple of days prior to that the star is all set to welcome his third child with wife Gauri.

A close source apparently states it was Gauri Khan's idea to go for the child through surrogacy. B-Town’s best kept secret is now out. With reports of Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan apparently having a third child through surrogacy, a B-Town insider reveals that extremely few were privy to the information which has now been leaked out.

Special Report: 'The Lethal Business Of IVF Clinics In India'

Egg donors in coma and cancer deaths: the hidden truth of infertility treatment.

Four year into their marriage, Geeta (name changed) and her husband had everything that they could hope for, except for a baby. The desperate couple consulted a gynaecologist in New Delhi. Geeta was diagnosed with tubercular infection of the fallopian tube, one of the three organs essential for conceiving.

Virgin Births - The Issues Of Surrogacy, The Possibilities Of Artificial Wombs, New Culture Dominating India

By Sara Williams | INN Live

SPECIAL REPORT In 1924, evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane coined the term ectogenesis to describe how pregnancy in humans could be provided through an artificial womb. In a fictional account, he had two future scientists describe the birth of the world’s first ectogenic child. “Now that the technique is fully developed, we can take an ovary from a woman, and keep it growing in a suitable fluid for as long as twenty years,” one of the characters announced.

This, by the character’s calculations, would result in “a fresh ovum each month, of which 90 percent can be fertilized, and the embryos grown successfully for nine months”, at which point they could be “brought out into the air”. Haldane imagined that artificial wombs might become so popular by 2074 that only a small minority, “less than 30 percent of children”, would then “be born of woman”.

Special Report: Trafficked Adivasi Tribal Girls In Jharkhand Forced To Surrogate, Deliver Babies For Sale

From the time she was 13, Phulmani (name changed) was forced to act as a surrogate mother and deliver six children by human traffickers from Jharkhand, widely considered a hotbed of modern day slavery.

Phulmani, now 31, was made to breastfeed the children – all born in consecutive years in Delhi – for about six months before giving them to the agents who sold them off.

The resident of Patru village in Gumla district was rescued by rights activists and returned to Jharkhand last year. Her experiences have left her emotionally and physically scarred.

Shah Rukh Khan Is In 'Trouble' Over 'Surrogate Child'

By Niloufer Khan / Mumbai

Just three days after claimed to have a 'scoop' on actor Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri planning their third child that too, a baby boy through surrogacy, the actor finds himself at the receiving end. Today, the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee filed a legal complaint against the Khan couple for engaging in sex selection of their baby. The complaint also names the actor's alleged doctor and the hospital in question, though both have denied any involvement.

Bollywood 'Controversial' In 2013, Wishes 'Good' In 2014

By Niloufer Khan | INN Live

BOLLYWOOD ROUNDUP Bollywood continued to be mired in controversy this year with actress Jiah Khan's suicide, Sanjay Dutt's return to jail, SRK-Salman's hug on Eid and SRK facing allegation of sex determination over the birth of his third child through surrogacy.

The biggest controversy in Bollywood this year was Jiah's suicide, which sent shock waves in the film fraternity.

The 25-year-old actress, best known for her roles opposite Amitabh Bachchan in 'Nishabd' and with Aamir Khan in 'Ghajini', was found hanging at her flat in suburban Mumbai in June this year.

Pain Of Separation: Separated By Birth And Visa Laws, Brother And Sister Languish On Opposite Shores

By Siddharth Mahi | INNLIVE

It’s a story of pathos that involves two siblings separated by oceans, fractious parents and complicated visa laws. Ten-year-old Vedant and his five-year-old sibling Medhavi, born to an Indian origin American citizen, have never met. 

They only speak to each other on Skype and have never done the ordinary things brothers and sisters do—play, quarrel, hug or have adventures together. 

Every March, Medhavi ties a rakhi on Vedant and showers kisses on him—all through Skype. Vedant lives in Houston, Texas while Medhavi, thousands of miles away in Vadodara, Gujarat. Their only fault is to be born as In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) babies, which has placed them in legal limbo, and at risk of becoming stateless.

In Focus: The Booming Great Indian 'Egg-Donation' Industry

By Likha Veer | INNLIVE

The death in Delhi has brought spotlight back on the fast rising but largely unregulated egg donation industry in India, riding on lucrative money and word of mouth. 

Among the registrations from 149 countries on a website offering free registration to egg and sperm donors, surrogate mothers and intended parents, the highest for egg and sperm donors — 5,293 — is from India. The second-placed US is way behind, at 1,509. Of the registrations from India, 1,113 are from Maharashtra, 587 from Delhi and 433 from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka each.

Special Report: Economic Slide Fuels Fertility Business Boom

By M H Ahssan & Kajol Singh

Women renting wombs, donating eggs to tide over financial crisis Economic slide

Last year’s sealing drive took away her husband’s catering unit. This October, recession cost Anita her retail job.

Christmas, though, may finally bring some cheer — and money — to this 26- yearold retail management postgraduate.

No, she hasn’t found another job. But she will raise money by renting out her womb to an American woman who is flying in to India to start the procedure next week.

“ I have an MBA degree and have done several computer courses. But I didn’t look for another job after losing the one that I had. The job market is just too tight,” Anita says.

The mother of a two- year- old hopes to be pregnant by January 2009. She’ll be paid Rs 2.75 lakh, along with all expenses incurred on groceries and medicines, for the next nine months.

“ If she hadn’t lost her job, she wouldn’t have bothered to do this. You don’t generally get such well- educated surrogates or donors, unless they are from the paramedic profession,” says Dr Shivani Sachdev Gour, a fertility expert at Phoenix Hospital, Greater Kailash- I, where Anita will undergo the procedure.

It’s win- win for Gour’s American patient as well. She’d have had to shell out $ 40,000- 50,000 ( Rs 20- 25 lakh) to a surrogate in the US. The recession is fuelling a baby harvest. It’s evident from a visit to the Delhi In- Vitro Fertilisation ( IVF) and Fertility Research Centre at Bengali Market.

Reeta, a software engineer, has taken time off from her IT firm in Gurgaon to donate eggs to an infertile couple being treated at the centre. She decided to do this after her husband, a software engineer in the US, returned to India after being laid off.

Reeta’s eggs go for a premium, thanks to her high IQ profile, and she makes Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 each time. “ My husband is trying to raise money to open his own software training institute.

I want to help him, as well as help infertile couples have babies,” she says.

Confirming the trend, Dr Anoop Gupta, Delhi IVF’s infertility specialist, says: “ In the last two months, we have had seven or eight couples walking in with prospective egg donors and surrogates who are all white- collared workers affected by the economic crisis. People facing recession know about this opportunity that will help them and also assist infertile couples.” In Gujarat’s Anand — India’s surrogacy capital — Kaival Hospital’s infertility specialist Nayna H. Patel says the number of educated and middle- class surrogates and donors from towns such as Vadodara has shot up by 15- 20 per cent.

“ Many of these women come after losing money in the share market or after either they themselves or their husbands lose their job,” Patel adds.

One of the surrogates under her care is a 26- year- old woman who has an LLB and a BCom degree. The woman turned to surrogacy after her husband was rendered jobless because of the economic downturn.

For Mayur Vihar housewifeturned- tutor Mandakini, becoming an egg donor came as an alternative to suicide, which she was contemplating after her husband, a sound engineer, lost his Rs 40,000- a- month job.

“ We moved from a two- bedroom home to a one- room set with a kitchen,” Mandakini recalls. “ My son’s marks fell from 96 per cent to 64 per cent because we couldn’t afford his tuitions any more. We didn’t have the money to pay his school fees. I had gone to a chemist to buy poison, but didn’t know what to get. That’s when I saw an ad for a donor in a women’s magazine.” Egg donation is a long- drawn process, involving 9- 10 days of injections, and the subsequent removal of eggs under general anaesthesia. Specialists say the procedure is safe.

“ There are no cuts and the entire procedure is done with the help of a needle guided by ultrasound,” assures Dr Deeksha ‘ assists Dr Gupta of Delhi IVF. Unmarried women are turned away from donation, for it leads to the tearing of the hymen during the medical examination, which isn’t held in a good light in many traditional homes.

Dr Gupta recently refused an infertile couple who came with a prospective donor — a laid- off airhostess — because she was unmarried. “ We take women who are married and have already had a child. They prove to be fertile,” he says.

In some states in the US, even college students donate eggs to pay their tuition fees. “ Depending student could receive anything between $ 5,000 ( Rs 2.4 lakh) and $ 30,000 ( Rs 14.5 lakh),” says Dr Sulochana Gunasheela, who runs her own IVF centre in Bangalore.

“ Models and women with high IQ invite online bids for their gametes.” All this may seem somewhat futuristic, but the way urban India is moving, are we likely to see educated middle- class women catching up with their US counterparts? “ If not now, possibly some time in the foreseeable future,” says Dr Gunasheela.