Successful pregnancies have never been more important at this surrogacy
centre where every bed is taken following a jump in demand as India inches towards banning commercial surrogacy.
These women could be among the last in the country to rent their wombs for money if the Indian
parliament passes a bill to outlaw commercial surrogacy – a 15-year-old
industry estimated to be worth as much as $2.3 billion annually – in
its next session starting in February.
India‘s
surrogacy industry has come under attack by women’s rights groups who
say fertility clinics are “baby factories” for the rich, and that a lack
of regulation results in poor and uneducated women signing contracts
they do not fully understand.
Yet some of the women the bill aims to protect are currently queuing up
for a last chance to make around 400,000 rupees ($5,900) – money they
said they could only dream of otherwise.
Razia Sultana, 32, had an embryo transferred into her uterus in the final week of December.
Until six months ago, she arranged egg donors and surrogates for
infertility clinics, making 5,000 rupees for each referral, but decided
to become a surrogate herself on the day she first heard about the ban.
“My children supported my decision saying bearing a child was better
than selling a kidney, which I was considering too,” she told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.
She will stay at the centre for nine months, meet her children once a week and only go outside with an escort.
“These are small compromises. I have no other option to make this kind of money.”
Slavery to Surrogacy
The Indian government believes the ban will check unethical practices.
“We are concerned about the health of the surrogate mother and that the
legal and financial rights of the child are protected,” said Manoj Pant
from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
“India wants to be on par with developed and developing nations that do not legitimise commercial surrogacy.”
Until the ban on surrogacy passes, India continues
to be among a handful of countries where women can be paid to carry
another’s child through in-vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer.
Most women at the Gurugram centre are from migrant colonies close to the sweatshops where they once worked.
Ruby Kumari, 35, heard about surrogacy three years ago at the export
factory where she worked 12-hour shifts, stitching 50 garments an hour –
a target her manager would stretch to 60 or even 70 – and earning 250
rupees a day.
The possibility of earning 400,000 rupees hooked her and she agreed to rent her womb.
“The day I delivered, the child’s parents gifted me 50,000 rupees in
addition to my fee,” Kumari said. “I came back and enrolled my daughter
into an English-medium school.”
Kumari’s husband also works in a garment factory and makes 2 rupees for
each item he irons. Pregnant with her second surrogate child, Kumari
said her family had no future if not for surrogacy.
Like Kumari, Jayalakshmi Verma is another surrogate who wonders why
“gifting motherhood” is wrong and why work that earns her respect and
money would be made illegal.
The 28-year-old single mother of three said: “My in-laws threw me out of
their house, my manager at the export factory was abusive and I was
forced to quit. Here I have got respect for carrying a child.”
Verma said she will have no choice but to return to the factory if surrogacy is banned. “What other skill do I have?”
Surrogacy law experts say that if the government wishes to protect poor
women from being exploited, it should regulate the sector rather than
banning it.
“The surrogacy bill does not make any provision for the protection of
women, assuming that banning commercial surrogacy will protect them,”
said Hari Ramasubramanian of Indian Surrogacy Law Centre.
Unregulated Business
At the Gurugram centre, owner Sarita Sharma read out the requirements
for an egg donor to a staff member: “Fair complexion, B positive.”
Within seconds, a picture of a fair young woman smiling into the camera
flashes up on her phone and she quickly alerts the clinic. Women receive
35,000 rupees for each donation.
“Business is brisk,” said Sharma, who has been arranging donors and
surrogates for the last decade using a wide network of agents in migrant
colonies.
She said demand for her 1 million rupee pregnancy packages – covering
the surrogate’s fee, food, accommodation and hospital expenses – has
shot up. “I have about 1,000 women registered with us,” Sharma said.
Yet as demand soars, so do concerns.
As part of a study on infertility clinics in New Delhi, sociologist
Tulsi Patel from the Delhi School of Economics found poor awareness
among women about the health complications and risks that repeated egg
donations and pregnancies can cause.
The study also found that in some cases, clinics would transfer more
than the permissible number of three embryos into the uterus to better
the chances of pregnancy.
“But we did not find a single case of a woman forced into surrogacy,” Patel said.
Experts fear the ban may push the industry underground, making women
offering surrogacy services only more vulnerable to health risks.
For now, the last surrogates still hope to realise their dreams. “I want
to start my own beauty parlour,” said Jyoti Pal, 24, a single mother
who is now four months pregnant.
“And I will do it again if possible.” – Reuters