New laws ban commercial surrogacy in India

2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
JSRG Saran ◽  
Jagadish Rao Padubidri

Surrogacy is a controversial issue and most particularly when well-known celebrities have used it. It is a boon for couples where normal pregnancy is not possible but can be used for commercial exploitation. The Government of India passed a law on surrogacy in December 2018, which introduced many changes to the pre-existing rules, in particular, it bans commercial surrogacy and curtails the freedom of foreigners to apply for surrogacy in India. This has dealt a major blow to the agencies who organised surrogacy for foreigners. A key reason for passing this law was the unjust treatment of the women who provided surrogacy services. They had poor living conditions and often failed to receive the money that was paid by the intended parents to the agency. 2 There are some countries where commercial surrogacy is legal, including some states in the United States of America, Poland, Russia and many others. 3 Some surrogate mothers suffer complications from the assisted reproductive technologies used; these mainly include ectopic pregnancy, psychological stress and ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome. 4 Same sex couples, single parents and even infertile women should be encouraged to adopt children.

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-531
Author(s):  
Joseph Nixon ◽  
Olinda Timms

Le tecniche di riproduzione assistita (ART) offrono la possibilità di una maternità surrogata alle coppie sterili o senza figli. Alla fine degli anni ‘80, specialisti qualificati in India hanno approfittato della disponibilità di madri surrogate e dell’assenza di regole per creare un mercato di maternità surrogata per i clienti sia indiani sia esteri. Il Ministero della Salute è intervenuto con le linee guida solo dopo forti proteste di gruppi di donne e cittadini, facendo seguito alle storie su ostelli surrogati, bambini abbandonati e sfruttamento. Nel frattempo, le cliniche dell’infertilità si sono moltiplicate, offrendo gameti di donatori, fecondazione in vitro e maternità surrogata ad un costo molto inferiore rispetto ai paesi occidentali. Dai primi anni del 2000, l’India è divenuta la destinazione più popolare per la pratica della maternità surrogata. In risposta alle proteste e consapevole del divieto di accordi di maternità surrogata negli altri paesi, il Governo indiano ha emanato le linee guida ART che erano via via restrittive; ma tali disposizioni non sono state in grado di arginare il business ormai florido. Infine, nel 2016, il governo ha proposto un disegno di legge per porre fine alla maternità surrogata commerciale. Il regolamento Bill 2016 considera esclusivamente gli accordi di maternità surrogata, non considerando tutti gli altri aspetti della riproduzione assistita e delle cliniche coinvolte. La legislazione è stata rivolta principalmente alle questioni sociali e agli elementi di sfruttamento della maternità surrogata commerciale, più che al processo tecnico. Se approvata, tale legge vieterà efficacemente maternità surrogata commerciale in India. ---------- Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) offer the possibility of unrelated surrogacy arrangements to infertile couples and childless human relationships. In the late 80s, qualified specialists in India took advantage of the availability of willing surrogates and the absence of regulations, to create a market in commercial surrogacy for clients from within the country and abroad. The Ministry of Health stepped in with guidelines only after strong protests from women’s groups and citizens, following media stories of surrogate hostels, abandoned children and exploitation. Meanwhile, ‘infertility’ clinics mushroomed, offering donor gametes, in-vitro fertilization and surrogacy services at a fraction of the cost in western countries. By early 2000s, India had emerged as the most popular destination for commercial surrogacy arrangements. In response to protests from doctors, citizens and human rights groups, and mindful of the ban on commercial surrogacy arrangements in most developed countries, the Government issued ART guidelines that were progressively restrictive; but these did not have the teeth to rein in the lucrative business that commercial surrogacy had transformed into. Finally, in 2016, the Government proposed a Bill that would bring an end to commercial surrogacy. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill 2016 addressed surrogacy arrangements exclusively, taking it out of proposed ART Bill that was aimed at comprehensively regulating all other aspects of assisted reproduction and the clinics involved. The legislation was directed mainly at the social issues and exploitative elements specific to commercial surrogacy arrangements, rather than the technical process. If passed, the Surrogacy Bill will effectively ban commercial surrogacy in India.


Somatechnics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalindi Vora

This paper provides an analysis of how cultural notions of the body and kinship conveyed through Western medical technologies and practices in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) bring together India's colonial history and its economic development through outsourcing, globalisation and instrumentalised notions of the reproductive body in transnational commercial surrogacy. Essential to this industry is the concept of the disembodied uterus that has arisen in scientific and medical practice, which allows for the logic of the ‘gestational carrier’ as a functional role in ART practices, and therefore in transnational medical fertility travel to India. Highlighting the instrumentalisation of the uterus as an alienable component of a body and subject – and therefore of women's bodies in surrogacy – helps elucidate some of the material and political stakes that accompany the growth of the fertility travel industry in India, where histories of privilege and difference converge. I conclude that the metaphors we use to structure our understanding of bodies and body parts impact how we imagine appropriate roles for people and their bodies in ways that are still deeply entangled with imperial histories of science, and these histories shape the contemporary disparities found in access to medical and legal protections among participants in transnational surrogacy arrangements.


1980 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Macleod

After years of comparative neglect John Taylor of Caroline has recently begun to receive again a degree of attention more in keeping with his true importance. That his impact upon both his own generation and upon subsequent generations of historians has always been less than it might have been is due largely to his tortured style of writing and the tortuous thought processes it reflected. John Randolph of Roanoke once commented that Taylor needed only a translator to make an impact, and Thomas Jefferson, replying to a communication from John Adams in 1814, wrote that a book received by Adams must have been Taylor's An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States: “neither the style nor the stuff of the author of Arator can ever be mistaken. [I]n the latter work, as you observe, there are some good things, but so involved in quaint, in far-fetched, affected, mystical conceipts [sic], and flimsy theories, that who can take the trouble of getting at them?” Taylor himself appeared to hold a fluent style in contempt, commenting that “A talent for fine writing is often a great misfortune to politicians.”Although Taylor's style renders study of his writings far from congenial, the consistency of his purpose and thought make it relatively easy to extract the main thrusts of his arguments. Far from a rigorous theorist he provides a running commentary upon the politics of his times. In that capacity, however, he never felt compelled to define clearly, even to himself perhaps, some of the central premises from which his arguments derived.


1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96

The Security Council held two meetings (1140th and 1141st) on August 5 and 7, 1964, to discuss a complaint of the United States government against the government of North Vietnam, which was expressed in a letter dated August 4, 1964, from the permanent representative of the United States addressed to the President of the Security Council. At the outset of the 1140th meeting on August 5, 1964, Mr. Morozov (Soviet Union) explained that he had requested the postponement of the meeting until August 6 to permit his delegation to receive necessary instructions from its government. With regard to this request, Mr. Stevenson (United States) pointed out that the UN Charter explicitly called for immediate reporting to the Council of measures taken by Members in the exercise of their right of self-defense. If the Council wished to adjourn after hearing the statement of the United States delegation, Mr. Stevenson had no objection. Mr. Hajek (Czechoslovakia) also opposed convening the meeting on August 5 on the grounds that Council members did not possess all the facts and views of the parties. To deliberate on the question on the basis of one version would not, he felt, serve the interests of the Council. Moreover, he did not feel that the circumstances constituted an emergency: The United States did not appear to be immediately threatened.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
N. Buzzell ◽  
S. Blash ◽  
K. Miner ◽  
M. Schofield ◽  
J. Pollock ◽  
...  

The objective of this study was to investigate a method of oviducal semen deposition as a strategy for producing offspring from poor-quality cryopreserved goat sperm. Invitro fertilisation (IVF) and AI are common assisted reproductive technologies used in small ruminants, but they have varied results in the goat. The use of poor-quality cryopreserved-thawed sperm (<50% live/dead ratio at post-thaw) can decrease the rate of success. These procedures were performed in the month of November in Central Massachusetts in the United States (42° N). Seven 10-year-old dairy goats (Saanen, Toggenburg, and Alpine breeds) were synchronised and superovulated using a progesterone implant on Day 0, a prostaglandin injection at Day 7, two daily injections of 36mg of FSH ~12h apart on Days 12-15, and progesterone implant removal on Day 14 followed by an injection of 50µg of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone. Sperm deposition was performed on Day 17 (72 h after implant removal). The animals were anaesthetised using a standardised protocol, intubated, and maintained using isoflurane, and sterile prep was performed before a midline laparotomy procedure. Straws from a single ejaculate from a transgenic founder that was cryopreserved using a commercial two-step glycerol-egg yolk-based extender were used. A straw from this collection was post-thawed 30 days after collection and, using a commercial live/dead stain, 67% live sperm was determined. The optimal type of sperm prep and sperm concentration is unknown and may be dependent on sperm quality. Therefore, different gradient preps using Vitrolife SpermGrad at three volumes (1.5 (used on two animals), 1.0, and 0.5mL) as well as two volumes of IVF Bioscience Bovine BO-SemenPrep (4.0mL (used on two animals) and 2.0mL) were used. All five pellets were diluted in 1.0mL of IVF Bioscience Bovine BO-IVF media. Sperm concentrations ranging from 75×106 to 27×106 spermmL−1 were deposited into one oviduct; then, a 10:1 dilution was performed and 7.5×106 to 2.7×10 spermmL−1 were deposited into the contralateral oviduct. The depositions were performed just proximal to the uterotubal junction in a volume of 0.1mL of diluent via a tuberculin syringe attached to a 20-gauge needle. Two days following the procedure, oviducts were flushed postmortem from three of the seven randomly selected goats. All three had fertilised embryos, and nineteen 8-cell embryos were retrieved. Three of these embryos were surgically transferred to the distal uterine horn of a suitable recipient. The recipient became pregnant and produced a single offspring. The remaining four of seven goats were killed 41 days post-surgery. Two of the four goats were pregnant, with one carrying one fetus and the other carrying five fetuses. Further studies are needed to optimise this method, but these initial results indicate that oviducal semen deposition directly into the oviduct proximal to the uterotubal junction may be a suitable alternative for producing offspring from suboptimal cryopreserved-thawed goat sperm.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Speier

Both the Czech Republic and the United States are destinations for cross-border reproductive travellers. For North Americans, including Canadians, who opt to travel to the Czech Republic for IVF using an egg donor, they are entering a fertility industry that is anonymous. This makes the Czech Republic different from other European countries that necessitate open gamete donation, as in Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. For reproductive travellers coming to the United States for fertility treatment, there is a wider menu of choices regarding egg donation given the vastly unregulated nature of the industry. More recently, professionals in the industry are pushing for ‘open’ egg donation. For intended parents traveling to either location seeking in vitro fertilization using an egg donor, they must choose whether or not to pursue open or closed donation. As pre-conception parents, they navigate competing discourses of healthy parenting of donor-conceived offspring. They must be reflexive about their choices, and protective when weighing their options, always keeping their future child's mental, physical and genetic health in mind. Drawing from ethnographic data collected over the course of six years in the United States and the Czech Republic, this paper will explore both programs, paying special attention to the question of how gamete donation and global assisted reproductive technologies intersect with different notions about healthy pre-conception parenting.


2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Stapleton ◽  
Daniel Skinner

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has prompted numerous gender and sexuality controversies. We describe and analyze those involving assisted reproductive technologies (ART). ART in the United States has been regulated in piecemeal fashion, with oversight primarily by individual states. While leaving state authority largely intact, the ACA federalized key practices by establishing essential health benefits (EHBs) that regulate insurance markets and prohibit insurance-coverage denials based on pre-existing conditions. Whatever their intentions, the ACA’s drafters thus put infertility in a subtly provocative new light clinically, financially, normatively, politically, and culturally. With particular attention to normative and political dynamics embedded in plausible regulatory trajectories, we review—and attempt topreview—the ACA’s effects on infertility-related delivery of health services, on ART utilization, and on reproductive medicine as a factor in American society.


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