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Doctors say 70 percent of the
clients are Non-Resident Indians
who find their efforts to get
a child cheaper in India. |
"My mother-in-law suggested it to me. We needed to buy a good house," said Navina.
Three months ago, Navina’s sister-in-law became a surrogate mother of twins.
"We now have a good house to live in," she adds.
Shilpa, 32, one of her sisters said: "Only my husband knows about it. I feel it is noble as it will bring happiness into a couple’s life."
The women are part of womb renting industry that has spawned in the rural hinterland of Anand in India’s state of Gujarat.
Primarily catering to childless Indian couples living in Canada, Britain, Australia and the United States, the professional surrogates get paid between one and two lakh rupees (about C$2,500 and C$5,000) to improve their poor and landless lives.
| Dr. Nayna Patel |
The gynecologist who has been tending to numerous "clients" at her hospital in Anand told the Press Trust of India, "women preferring to become surrogate mothers are briefed right from the start that they will have to hand over the child to the childless couple soon after the delivery and are repeatedly told this whenever examined during pregnancy."
"This is for the benefit of surrogate women so that they do not nurse any attachment for the child after the birth." she said.
Dr. Patel, director of the Akanksha Infertility Clinic knows what she is talking about.
She was a key player in the so called "grandmother case", where a woman delivered her daughter’s twins in 2004.
Last month she paraded about a dozen professional surrogates from Anand in front of Indian media as she pushed for acceptance for professional surrogacy.
Wearing surgical masks and baby blue and pink aprons to hide their identities, the women – all married with children of their own spoke candidly to the media of being mothers for hire.
"I came to know about commercial surrogacy through another surrogate mother. Initially, I had a tough time convincing my husband to shift out of the joint family. However, he agreed as the fee was quite an incentive," said Dikshita Shah, 30, a working mother of two children.
The IVF technique involves the egg of the biological mother being fertilised with sperms of the father in a test tube. The embryo is then transferred into the uterus of the surrogate mother.
Another lucrative source of income for the women in Anand is egg donations.
‘‘We earn anywhere up to five thousand rupees (about C$130) in 20 days’ time. Where will we earn money so quickly without doing anything immoral,’’ said a woman identified as Geeta.
As news spreads and egg donors get introduced by their neighbours and relatives, hesitation about surrogacy is dissipating, reported Indian media.
In fact, Geeta is willing to reverse a family planning operation to chance an earning as a surrogate mother.
"We have no land; my husband is a rickshaw driver. We all want a decent life. Instead of doing something bad, here we have the satisfaction of giving someone happiness too,’’ said an egg donor, who called herself Rita.
"Women without uterus and underdeveloped uterus or medical conditions are forced to go for surrogacy," says Dr Mona Bhatt, a gynecologist in Vadodara.
Doctors say 70 percent of the clients are Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who find their efforts to get a child cheaper in India.
"Most NRIs prefer surrogate mothers from India as it is easier to find one. An agency abroad may charge about US$30,000 and the surrogate mother is given another US$15,000.
Moreover the surrogate also enjoys certain rights over the baby," said Dr Patel.
"In India, the couple just needs to clear the medical bills and pay about Rs 1 lakh or more to the surrogate mother."
The surrogate mother and egg donation industry is also catching on in other parts of India.
The Pune Fertility Centre in Shivajinagar recently announced a ‘surrogacy programme’ and invited ‘women in the 25-30 years age group’ to enroll as members.
‘‘Monetary benefits are playing a key role in attracting women to act as surrogate mothers. The rent-a-womb contract for the surrogate mother can be as high as 10 lakh (about C$25,000),’’ Pune Fertility Centre lab director Shehbaaz Daruwala, was quoted as saying.
Daruwala said the demand for ‘‘eggs’’ were primarily from women with a genetic problem or with those whose ovaries don’t have eggs or from women who suffer from premature ovarian failure.
Chief IVF consultant and endoscopist at Ruby Hall Clinic Sunita Tandulwadkar said they had been receiving several queries. ‘‘It is legal in India,’’ she said.
While wombs for rent in India may be legal, in Canada it is a different story.
The Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) Act states that no payment can be made to a sperm or egg donor for their donation nor can payment be given to a woman providing surrogacy services.
Section 6 of the AHR Act prohibits anyone from paying a person to act as a surrogate. It also prohibits anyone from receiving payment for arranging, offering to arrange, or advertising to arrange the services of a surrogate.
Fines under the Act range from C$250,000 to C$500,000.
An official with British Columbia’s Adoption Agency told The Asian Pacific Post that Canada and India are among the signatory-countries of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Inter-country Adoption which aims to stops trafficking of children and illegal adoptions.
She, however, said that surrogacy is not specifically covered by the convention.
The official noted that India allows only people of Indian origin to adopt children from India to ensure that these adoptive children are going to families of the same cultural background.
Kathleen Walker, a Vancouver-based family lawyer said surrogate motherhood is "technically a no-no" in Canada.
"You can’t pay for anything and if I understand it, not even for medical expenses. It’s a very tough law.
Over my 15 years of practice, I’ve never come across surrogate mothering."
Walker said if all the activities related to the contract are done in India, the general rule in law would say that Canada has no jurisdiction.
"But if negotiations are initiated or done from Canada, the law will come into play," she said.
