The draft Surrogacy Bill, 2016, which has been cleared by the Law Ministry, will be placed before a Group of Ministers (GoM) for consideration, the Lok Sabha was informed today.
"The draft Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill has been finalised after inter-ministerial consultation and consultation with various stakeholders.
"The finalised draft bill, as cleared and vetted by the Department of Legal Affairs and the Legislative Department of the Ministry of Law and Justice, is to be placed before the GoM for their consideration," Minister of State for Health Shripad Yesso Naik said in a written reply.
He said the provisions envisaged in the proposed bill aim at regulating commissioning surrogacy in the country in a proper manner and safeguarding the rights and interests of the surrogate mothers and the children to be born out of surrogacy.
He said in the absence of a statutory mechanism to control commissioning of surrogacy at present, there could be cases of pregnancies by way of surrogacy, including in rural and tribal areas, owing to possible exploitation of women in vulnerable sections of the society by unscrupulous elements.
The bill was to be taken up by the Union Cabinet on April 27, but it was dropped from the agenda at the last moment.
Naik had earlier said that the provisions are being made in the draft Surrogacy Bill, 2016, to make parentage of children born out of surrogacy "legal and transparent".
He had said that to prevent exploitation of women, the government has prohibited foreigners from commissioning surrogacy in the country and drafted the bill to safeguard the interest of surrogate mothers and the children born out of surrogacy.
