Making it clear that India will not be a baby farm for “foreigners,” the Centre told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it did not support rent-a-womb commercial surrogacy and would make such exploitation of women and children wombs punishable under the law.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said surrogacy would be “altruistic” and not commercial, and limited to “infertile Indian married couples and not to foreigners.”
“The Government of India does not support commercial surrogacy as a policy stand and also the scope of surrogacy is limited to Indian married infertile couples only and not to foreigners,” the Ministry said in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court.
This provision, it said, would be part of The Assisted Reproductive Techniques (Regulation) Bill, 2014, which was currently doing the rounds among the States for comments.
The Ministry was silent on whether the new law limited surrogacy only to “married couples” or would go further and allow single parents to have and raise surrogate children. It said the paramount goal of the new law was to protect surrogate mothers.
The Ministry further said that it was against the import of human embryo for surrogacy purposes.