A Review of the Legislative Attitude towards Surrogacy

Paul Abraham
Christ University, India.

Volume III, Issue V, 2020

Surrogacy in normal parlance is a understood as a form of contract where the consideration lies in the delivery of the baby for which the delivering mother is paid. The recent developments in technology has paved way for surrogacy to be used on a commercial basis. This involves payment of hefty sum of money as income to the surrogate for the service offered by her plus any expenses incurred in her pregnancy and surrogacy is thereby looked upon as a business opportunity. It is sort of a business transaction where the consideration is delivery of the baby. This commercial usage was particularly prevalent in the Indian scenario where due to excellent medical infrastructure, high international demand and ready availability of poor surrogates it is reaching industry proportions. this has in recent times paved the way for certain problems. women who choose to become surrogates are often subject to unethical treatment, poor living conditions and they only earn a fraction of what the surrogate companies charge due to their illiteracy. this has led to a popular terming of commercial surrogacy as “baby factories”. Although commercial surrogacy is proposed to be banned as per the surrogacy bill passed in the Lok Sabha in 2019, the prospective effects of the same are not to be forgotten. This research paper focuses on whether as to the such ban on commercial surrogacy would be effective and points out the problems in this regard and the possibility of a regime of regulation of Commercial Surrogacy.

Keywords – Baby factory, Commercial Surrogacy, excellent medical infrastructure, Regulation.