Surrogate Motherhood

Medical Ethics
Definition of Mother
• Natural or social female parent of an offspring.
• Provides ovum, gestate children and fulfil the primary role in the
raising of children.
Role of mother
• Genetic mother- provides the ovum
• Gestational mother- carries the pregnancy
• Social mother- brings up the child
• Though the practice of surrogacy has already become a big market in
western countries, it has also generated countless challenges for the
law because it adds a third dimension to the meaning of motherhood.
Value of mother
• It is priceless, invaluable, no mother price listed.
• Value of surrogate motherhood
• Costlier
Value of mother
• Like adoption, surrogacy separates the role of rearing mother from
what the law has called the natural mother,
• But gestational surrogacy breaks the latter down into the roles of
genetic mother and birth mother, leaving two women with biological
connections to the child.
• Because surrogacy tends to commodify and dehumanize people, and
because of all its legal, social, and psychological complications, it is
obviously not wise to accept surrogacy as an alternative way of
procreation.
Surrogacy in India
• The word surrogate means substitute.
• The urge of motherhood leads to seek alternative solutions like
1. Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART) [donor insemination,
embryo transfer]
2. In- Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
3. Intra- Uterine Injections (IUI)
Gives hope to many infertile couples, longing to have child of their
own.
Surrogacy in India
• Surrogacy arrangements are taking place in India:
• Because of affordability of medical techniques in lesser cost
• And richness inturn heiring the surrogate mother.
• With the entry of financial arrangements in exchange of the surrogate
child,
• The child becomes the ‘saleable commodity’
• Complications arises in terms of rights of the surrogate mother, the
child, and the commissioning parents.
Types of surrogacy
1. Traditional
2. Gestational
Commercialization
Legal issue
Landscapes of surrogacy in India
Landscapes of surrogacy in India
ICMR guidelines
ICMR guidelines