Unregulated Surrogacy: Law Yet to Deliver

India is among just a handful of countries —including Georgia, Russia, Thailand and Ukraine — and a few US states where women can be paid to carry another couple's genetic child through a process of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and embryo transfer.

TWO weeks ago an eight-month pregnant surrogate mother died in a Mohali hospital. The death prompted many denials. Efforts were made to establish that the deceased was not carrying a surrogate baby. But in the hospital records, the woman was registered as Pinky, the ghost name given to her was in fact the name of the woman, who, along with her husband allegedly commissioned altruistic surrogacy. Pinky is dead on records, but, the ghost Pinky who died with her eight-month-old foetus left behind a web of unanswered questions. Because though surrogacy is not illegal in India, it continues to operate as an unregulated industry.  

Ethical considerations

Despite using state-of-the-art technology and global network, ethical health considerations in the operation of IVF surrogacy are ignored: such as the harvesting of multiple oocytes for egg extraction, the implantation...