Women sell wombs for cash

Hyderabad: Remember that film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke where Preity Zinta played a surrogate mother? Now in a new twist to outsourcing, more and more Indian women are renting out their wombs to foreigners and NRIs, reveals a recent research. Surrogate motherhood, (which means injecting the infertile mother's eggs and her husband's sperms into another woman through gamate intra fallopian transfer or GIFT) was once limited in India to helping close relatives who couldn't conceive. But what was once done for emotional reasons has become a commercial venture with many women willing to carry babies for others, for a fee. In Gujarat's Anand district alone, presence of 50 surrogate mothers has been reported.

Gynaecologist Dr Mridula Verma says, "Considering that womb renting or IVF treatment can be done in the country at a much cheaper rate than abroad, coupled with the absence of legal complications, encourages foreigners or NRIs to come to India in search of surrogate mothers." Dr Verma feels that there's nothing wrong in this concept if a couple has genuine medical problems. Also, arrangements for proper counseling should be made for the surrogate mother as well as the couple, so that it becomes easier for the former to part with the baby. Dr Nabnita Patnaik gynecologist and obstetrician, Apollo DRDO Hospital agrees that counseling is very important as the surrogate mother may sink into depression otherwise. She feels that GIFT is a better option than adoption as the parents at least consider the newborn as their own. "However, there should be government approved norms for surrogate motherhood. There should be a committee comprising lawyers, social workers, doctors, psychologists etc. who will decide if the woman is stable and fit enough to undergo GIFT."

Sociologist, Professor G. Satyanarayana of Osmania University is apprehensive about the concept as he believes that it can lead to emotional exploitation of women. "Also, there are healthy women who might want to take the help of surrogate mothers, as they are unwilling to put their careers on hold for pregnancy. They are doing something unnatural and depriving themselves of the joys of motherhood," points out Prof Satyanarayana.

Psychologist, Dr Y.A. Macheswalla concludes that surrogate motherhood should be resorted to as the last recourse when all other options to conceive fail and there's also the need of well-defined laws and guidelines governing it.
Source: DC