A draft bill which aims to safeguard the rights of surrogate mothers and make parentage of such children legal was today cleared by the Union Cabinet.

According to the Health Ministry proposal, the draft Surrogacy Bill, 2016 aims at regulating commissioning of surrogacy in the country in a proper manner.

Official sources said the Cabinet gave its green signal to the Bill to be introduced in Parliament.



TOTAL BAN ON COMMERCIAL SURROGACY



A Group of Ministers (GoM) had recently cleared the bill and had referred it to the Union Cabinet for a final call.

The GoM was constituted at the behest of the Prime Ministers Office.

Apart from Health Minister J P Nadda, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal were among those part of the GoM.

The government had recently admitted that in the absence of a statutory mechanism to control commissioning of surrogacy at present, there have been cases of pregnancies by way of surrogacy, including in rural and tribal areas, leading to possible exploitation of women by unscrupulous elements.

The bill was to be taken up by the Union Cabinet on April 27, but it was dropped from the agenda at the last moment.

To prevent exploitation of women, especially those in rural and tribal areas, the government has prohibited foreigners from commissioning surrogacy in the country and has drafted this comprehensive legislation, the sources said.

The government had recently said in Parliament that provisions are being made in the draft Bill to make parentage of children born out of surrogacy "legal and transparent".

SUSHMA SWARAJ HITS OUT AT CELEBRITY COUPLES



Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has condemned the misuse of altruistic surrogacy. Swaraj hit out at star actors and celebrities saying that there are celebrity couples who have two kids and are going for surrogacy which is reprehensible. "Big celebrities who not only have one but two children, a son and a daughter, even then they went ahead with surrogacy. Just because their wife doesn't want to suffer pain you can't go for this," she said.



Here is what Sushma Swaraj said: Cabinet has given approval to a bill to ban commercial surrogacy. It is an important bill and it will be revolutionary in improving the condition of females. In the last few years, a new business of renting a womb has come, where a poor woman's womb is used to produce a child and then the woman to left to her misery. According to reports, more than 2000 surrogate clinics are currently working in India. There is a complete ban on commercial surrogacy. There was also an angle that there are couples who are not able to produce kids but their relatives are willing to help then why should the government come in between. This is what is called altruistic surrogacy and this the main point of this bill. National surrogacy board will be constituted under the chairmanship of health minister. Three female MPs will be member of the board and two MPs will be form Lok Sabha. Only Indian nationals will be allowed for altruistic surrogacy. Foreign nationals or even NRI or OIC will not be allowed. Only married couples will allowed to opt of surrogacy. Gay, single, live-in couples are not allowed. The marriage should be minimum of five years and the age of the woman should be from 23-50 and for the man 26-55. There should be a medical certificate that the couple is not able to produce their own child. Parents who have their own child or have an adopted one will not be eligible to go for surrogacy. Also a woman can be a surrogate mother only once. The surrogate child will have all the rights at par with the biological child including property. It would be mandatory for surrogacy clinic to maintain the record of that child for 25 years. If the clinic violates any rule then they will face 10 years of imprisonment.

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-With inputs from PTI

