A Pregnant Pause

Surrogacy exploitation cases show up government’s ineffectual rules

- Amarnath K. Menon

A huddle of 135 surrogate mothers held in virtual confinement through the nine months of their pregnancy—the shocking revelation of the goings-on at two clinics in Hyderabad and Bhongir has exposed the inadequacy of regulations to protect such women.

The Telangana police conducted searches at Hyderabad’s Sai Kiran Infertility Clinic and the Dr Padmaja Surrogacy Centre in Bhongir following complaints that the surrogate mothers were poorly cared for. The raids revealed that surrogacy, hitherto seen as an extension of in-vitro fertilisation facilities, had in fact become a hugely lucrative business. Police found that while prospective parents who commissioned the surrogacies paid the clinics a minimum of Rs 20 lakh, the surrogate mums received just Rs 3.5 lakh or even less.