Surrogate Mothers Face Nightmares of Surrogacy

The poor surrogate mothers in Gujarat, who rent their wombs to augment the family income, have been confronted with the horrors of a pitiable payment and broken homes.

The Centre for Social Research, an NGO, revealed after talking to nearly 100 surrogate mothers and 50 commissioning parents in Anand, Surat and Jamnagar in Gujarat, that surrogacy has not gone down well with their husbands and children.

"We found some disturbing trends. For instance, though the husbands do not mind their wives to act as surrogate mothers, the spouse and her children distance themselves from her after she returns home following the birth of the baby," CSR director Dr Ranjana Kumari said.

In Anand, around 52 per cent of the surrogate mothers said they were abandoned by their husbands and that most of them had to fend for themselves and their children.

Around 14 per cent women in Surat and 20 per cent in Jamnagar said their relationship with their husbands soured. Many surrogate mothers - 100 per cent in Jamnagar, 83 per cent in Surat and 40 per cent in...