Surrogacy Bill 2020 Allows Any Willing Woman To Be A Surrogate And To All Women, Irrespective Of Their Status. We Love This
I’ll be honest – I don’t love kids. Every thing about them from their pee to tantrums put me off and I find myself actively running to the other side when I spot a little one. However, having said that, I am also the kind who has already a baby girl name in her head ready for the time I will have one of my own with my partner. Because who am I kidding? The feeling of motherhood trumps hypocrisy here. But the matter of fact is that we don’t live in an ideal world, and sometimes something as natural as child birth to a woman doesn’t come easy. It is perhaps in those times, that we wish we had more options available to us and surrogacy is one of those many ways.
In India, surrogacy that at first was met with a lot of criticism, considering that it went against the basic understanding and way of things of the orthodox society. But often, it was an option available only to married couples. The previous bill stated that only Indian married infertile couples would be allowed to opt for the option of surrogacy, that too from a willing female relative, and it was met with a lot of backlash and ended up not being passed in the upper house of the parliament.
The new and revised bill of 2020, however, has come across as a ray of hope. Sanctioned on Wednesday, the bill now allows willing females to be surrogates to Indian married couples and single women. It also allows the person using a surrogate mother to only pay for her medical expenses to reduce commercialisation of the act.
#CabinetDecisions#SurrogacyBill
Cabinet Approves Bill To regulate Surrogacy@DeadlyLaw@barcouncilindia@barandbench @lawescortdotin @LawReporterIn @Lawyer @Lawyersclub @AdvocateIndian @SujataPh @AdvocateKhusboo @rajneeshadvoca1 @Puneet_Nigam @AdvocateJRJ @AdvocateHimali pic.twitter.com/nhzPFsTz4G— Adv. Sumit Kumar Shakya (@Juristsks) February 27, 2020
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The act that had earlier restricted itself to only a female relative giving birth, that too only to infertile Indian couples, has been revised for the better. It us now inclusive of single, widowed and divorced women who could also use a surrogate mother to carry their child. Smriti Irani, the Women and Child Development minister said in an interview, “If the woman is a widow or divorcee, she has the right to opt for surrogacy,” and we are glad that such options have been granted to single women willing to becomes mothers too.
In place of "close relative", the bill has now proposed that the surrogate mother should be "willing" woman.#SurrogacyBill https://t.co/SxHgGUvJkR
— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) February 27, 2020
The revised bill also sought to delete the definition of ‘infertility’ in its context, which earlier meant the inability to conceive after five years of unprotected intercourse. Keeping in mind that it was too long a period for a couple to wait for a child, this definition too has been taken off the 2020 bill. It is being said that the new bill has been passed in light of cutting down on commercial surrogacy by only allowing for the medical expenses of the surrogacy to be taken care of.
Shilpa Shetty Kundra too, earlier this month became a mother to a baby girl, Samisha, through surrogacy. Talking about how after trying for five years to conceive, they finally opted for surrogacy and are now blessed to have a baby at 35, Shilpa revealed that she and her husband were ”trying’ for 5 years. Other celebrities who have opted for pregnancy through the way of surrogacy have been Sunny Leone, Kim Kardashian and the likes of them. And even though there are people who want to resist the idea of ‘fashion surrogacy’, where celebrities opt for the process with the fear that having a child will ruin their figure, we believe it is an enabling concept that allows for single women and couples to experience parenthood, whatever may be the circumstance. This was about due, and we are glad it’s finally actualised into reality.
