Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and Surrogacy

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and Surrogacy

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – Lok Sabha passed the Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulation Bill, 2020, which makes provisions for the safe and ethical practice of assisted reproductive technology (ART) services in the country.

Concept –

• The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill relates to surrogacy, an infertility treatment, where a third person, a woman, is the surrogate mother.
  • In ART, treatments can be availed by the commissioning couple themselves and it is not always necessary that a third person is involved.
• Surrogacy is allowed for only Indian married couples.
  • ART procedures are open to married couples, live-in partners, single women, and also foreigners.
• A 2015 notification prohibits commissioning of surrogacy in India by foreigners or OCI or PIO cardholders, but NRIs holding Indian citizenship can avail surrogacy.
  • Foreigners can visit India under medical tourism to avail ART services.
• Under the Surrogacy Bill, there will be a National Surrogacy Board that will be involved in policymaking, and act as a supervisory body, and State Boards that will act as executive bodies.
  • The ART Bill provides for a National Board, with the powers vested in a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure.
• According to the Health Ministry, the estimated number of clinics practising surrogacy in India is likely less than 1,000, while that of those practising ART is likely more than 40,000.

ART bank

• Under the Bill, ART will include all techniques that attempt to obtain a pregnancy by handling the sperm or the oocyte outside the human body, and transferring the gamete or the embryo into the reproductive system of a woman.
• It defines an ART bank as an organisation set up to supply sperm or semen, oocytes, or oocyte donors to ART clinics or their patients.
• ART services will apply to women above the legal age of marriage and below 50, and to men above the legal age of marriage and below 55.