November 19, 2019
Abir Ranjan Biswas speaks on The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Today is the second day of the session. Full afternoon, Rajya Sabha is running smoothly. Government Legislative Business is on track because all of us are cooperating 100%. We can also expect that the Government shows the same spirit of cooperation every morning always and also when Opposition voices are heard in the morning during Zero Hour and Question Hour.
My party All India Trinamool Congress stands and strongly believes that Bills must be scrutinised by Standing Committees before they are passed. This is a good way to improve legislation and not rush with them. This was one of the few Bills to be scrutinised by the Standing Committee and we welcome it, though the recommendations were not aptly taken. Sir, even though the BJP speaker who spoke highlighted the shortcomings of the Bill, you can really imagine the quality of drafting.
Sir, Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, in his novel, Never Let Me Go, portrays a scenario where a community of human clones exist only to serve the medical needs of more privileged class providing organs and bodies for use. Arti Prasad, eminent biologist and author of several nonfiction books have observed in her book, Like A Virgin, and I quote, “In the last few years, India has actually illustrated the extreme of what commercialising women’s body for reproduction looks like, something akin to the handmade steel come to life with a certain demographic, taking away the responsibility of producing children, for those who can afford the service.
Surrogacy is inherently a practice of open exploitation, particularly in a place like India, where gender inequality is so marked. In United Nations Development Programme Report 2017 on Gender Inequality, India ranked 125th among 129 countries. In 2016, Sir, a study found that expenditure on major illness for women was 28% lesser than on men in India. An analysis of (?) from numerous medical and research institutions reveal that Indian women are 74% of living kidney donors and 61% of living liver donors, but only a meagre 19% of kidney and 24% of liver recipients. Each was a legitimate donation where the woman had given consent.
Thus we can easily say, that in South Asian patriarchal society, in general and in Indian particularly, they are often told to donate organs and not asked to do so. Now, if this is the situation, an altruistic donation that is related to livers and kidneys we can well imagine the plight of Indian women in case of commercial surrogacy – a system only women are biologically equipped for. Poor women folk in India can be pressured to the brink of their existence by the family to bear a child of a rich couple who fancies such commercial surrogacy as going to a luxury store and asking for a service in view of money, may be little for them, but a questionable amount for the poor surrogate family.
I welcome this Bill as it will, with the provisions in it, serve as a good deterrent against repeat surrogates due to family pressure. Gynaecologists are often of the opinion that only women who do not have wombs, or have cancer, actually require surrogacy. But taking unethical advantages of situations, there are unethical practitioners and unscrupulous fertility clinics who make billions of people’s natural inability to conceive advertising themselves by inviting media to their facilities to exhibit the stay homes for surrogate mothers which are essentially jails. They appear on paid slots of TV, these professionals and fraudulent representatives. They appear on TV channels to advocate the pros and cons of surrogacy in a way as if bearing a child in a natural way is unfashionable and we find most eminent of Bollywood stars getting carried away by it and falling into the trap.
Many such clinics are rampantly present in the western part of India. Recent stories have come up in the media that rural women being exploited severely by certain unscrupulous persons by clinically unethical medical persons where a paltry sum is paid to them but they charge few millions in each case.
Sir, the Confederation of Indian Industries valued the surrogacy industry to the tune of $2 billion as per their report in 2012 and it has grown much meantime. This has been a result of processes of surrogacy by being governed by mere sort of guidelines of Indian Council of Medical Resource in 2002 which permitted the use of women to bear a child at a price. Such lax regulations gave rise to the term ‘rent ovum’.
Sir, this has unsettling implications despite its mainly ubiquitous use. The spirit of the new Surrogacy Bill seems to be guided by the framework of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, which permits only altruistic donations for all donors living or deceased and Sir Donations must be weighed for a reason of love though the donor can be compensated for medical and surgical costs.
Sir, we welcome this Bill as it will make legal provisions to take care, also legal and illegal ventures but also there are a number of areas of which more and legal provisions are needed by which this Bill can achieve the goal it is for.
Sir, I would like to elaborate on these but there are a number of cases which need our immediate attention. Firstly Sir, relating to concerns to check the rampant use of commissions and services at National and Regional levels when Boards are formed. There should be a highly powered committee in place till these are formed, which includes Members of Parliament and eminent persons in the field of assisted reproductive techniques (ART) which could inspect and monitor these clinics. The composition of national, regional service boards are dubious Sir. It should be seen that the ones who head the boards as Directors have at least 25 years of experience in ART and the members should also have experience of 20 years.
Also Sir, we can say that there are many clauses which my colleagues have mentioned, I would not repeat them but few things. Like in case of abortion, in addition to Medical Termination Of Pregnancy Act ,1971, the approval of appropriate authority and surrogate mother is required. There is no time limit to grant such an approval but this time is crucial in the times of medical emergencies and pregnancies and this could prove fatal for a surrogate mother. This should be taken care of.
Sir, this is discriminatory in nature as it limits the option of surrogacy to legally married Indian couples. The Standing Committee that was headed by one of our Hon’ble colleagues in this August House, Ram Gopal Yadav Ji, recommended that this overlooks a section of society that wants a surrogate child. Sir, they recommended the eligibility be widened to include live-in couples, divorced women, widows, NRIs, Person of Indian Origin and Overseas Citizen of India Card Holders, This is Sir, because if NRIs are going to take these opportunities outside it would be very costly for them.
Also Sir, there is a clause that to initiate the surrogacy procedure the couple needs to obtain an eligibility certificate. But for which there is time limit mentioned in this Bill. This is not in right spirit. There is no scope for appeal once the application is rejected. This should be recommended to the Standing Committee and this should be taken care of.
Thank you, Sir.
