The Lok Sabha has passed the Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulation Bill, 2020 that deals with safe and ethical fertility treatments in India. But this bill is a prequel to the Surrogacy Bill that was passed by the same house on August 5, 2019. But the Select Committee recommended that the ART Bill should come first and then the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill can be implemented.
How are the ART Bill and the Surrogacy Bill different?
Surrogacy and ART are different at the core. While surrogacy involves a third individual other than the commissioning couple who would be the surrogate mother and bear the child, ART involves any fertility treatment and is done on the couple. All Indian married couples can opt for surrogacy while ART is for everyone from married couples to line-in couples to single mothers and even foreigners. Foreigners or even OCI or PIO cardholders cannot avail of surrogacy in India but NRIs with valid Indian citizenship can.
READ ALSO : What The FAQ: Why is the new COVID variant named Omicron?
What does the Surrogacy Bill say?
The Surrogacy Bill will have provisions for a National Surrogacy Board that will build policies and act as a supervisory body. There will also be separate boards for each state and they will act as executive bodies. Based on the data by the Health Ministry, there are less than 1,000 clinics in India that practice surrogacy.
Did India really need an ART Bill?
According to the Health Ministry, the estimated number of clinics practising ART is likely more than 40,000. The ART Bill will help form a National Board which will have the powers that are with a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure. There are no bodies to regulate ART and ART clinics yet. The bill will bring in Standard Operating Protocols (SOPs) for these clinics and ART Banks.
How will this new setup work?
The National Board will work with the Centre to for policies, make guidelines for basic infrastructure and form rules and regulations. There will be a National Registry that will have a centralised database of clinics and banks. And this data will help the National Board with policy decisions. There will also be a registering authority who will grant, suspend, or cancel the registration of ART centres. They will also have the power to enforce the standards and supervise, investigate complaints, take legal action and suggest modifications to the regulations.
