Studies on Ethical Aspects of Surrogacy in India

摘要

Surrogacy implies that a woman becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child with the intention of giving away thischild to another childless person or childless couple who intends to raises the child. There are two main types of surrogacy,gestational surrogacy also known as host or full surrogacy [1] which was first achieved in April 1986 [2] and traditionalsurrogacy also known as partial, genetic, or straight surrogacy. India is a main destination for surrogacy for the past decade.Indian and Nepali surrogates have been increasingly popular with intended parents in industrialized nations because of therelatively low cost. However Indian Parliament in 2018 passed the Surrogacy Bill to regulate surrogacy in India by establishingNational Surrogacy Board at Central level, State surrogacy Boards and appropriate authorities in States and Union Territories.Many ethical issues that have been raised with regards to commercial surrogacy they are large wealth and power differentialsbetween intended parents and surrogates, women’s human right to make contracts regarding the use of her body, contracting forsurrogacy more like contracting for employment/labor or more like contracting for prostitution or more like contracting forslavery, the relationship between genetic motherhood, gestational motherhood and social motherhood, socially or legallyconceive of multiple modes of motherhood and or the recognition of multiple mothers, and a child born via surrogacy have theright to know the identity of any/ all of the people involved in that child’s conception and delivery. The present study is intendedto provide material for consideration and debate about all these ethical aspects of surrogacy in India.