Central Government To Ban Commercial Surrogacy

The Lok Sabha on August 05, 2019 cleared the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019, which seeks to ban commercial surrogacy and to promote ethical altruistic surrogacy with the due clearance from appropriate authorities to only eligible couples and mother as defined under this Bill¹.

The bill is yet to get approval from Rajya Sabha and the President's assent to become a law. Once it is approved, it will be announced by the Central government for enforcement purpose.

The bill only allows permitted surrogacy to be ethical surrogacy, where (i) the intending couple has been proven infertile; (ii) the nature of surrogacy is altruistic, means no monetary compensation is made to the surrogate mother except medical expenses and insurance coverage; (iii) not for commercial or marketable purposes; (iv) not for producing children for sale, prostitution or other forms of exploitation; and (v) for any condition or disease specified through regulations.