It’s about time. Indian women have died being surrogates and children, not wanted, have been abandoned by their biological parents.
Now, the government of India is moving to protect the country’s women from exploitation in the surrogacy industry. From the Wall Street Journal story:
India’s government has instructed fertility clinics not to allow foreigners to use local surrogate mothers to bear children as it seeks to impose tighter limits on a growing industry that has raised concerns about the exploitation of women. In a letter dated Tuesday, the Indian Council of Medical Research, a government body, said surrogacy services could be provided only to married Indian couples.
The letter didn’t address the issue of babies now being carried by surrogate mothers for foreign clients. The directive, which the council’s chief scientist said had been sent at the behest of the Health Ministry, follows the release of draft legislation by the ministry that would prohibit foreigners, except for those with family origins in India, from employing Indian surrogates.
The bodies and parts of the world’s destitute should not be purchasable and rentable by the world’s well off. I applaud India and hope they finalize the ban on allowing women to be surrogates for non citizens with all due dispatch.