FROM BOOM TO A BAN: TRANSNATIONAL COMMERCIAL SURROGACY IN INDIA

In Aug 2015, India imposed a ban on transnational commercial surrogacy, restricting it to heterosexual Indian couples who have been married for five years, have no existing children, and are able to persuade a relative to become a surrogate altruistically for them. This ban and the 2016 Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill is expected to be endorsed as law in 2019. The Bill, in effect, clamps down on the multi-billion-dollar industry involving over 3000 clinics. This paper analyses the rationale and outcomes of the restrictive ban on the industry of commercial surrogacy. In the first few sections I unpack the implications of the 2016 Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill and proposed ban on commercial surrogacy and situate it within national imperatives as well as a global political context. I use data from my decade-long ethnographic work in surrogacy clinics in India, together with the recent developments in the surrogacy industry to argue against such a ban for two connected reasons: the effect of such a ban on the most vulnerable (the surrogates); and the utter naivety of trying to resolve a global problem merely through restrictive national legislations. In the final section, I propose an alternative to the morality frame for understanding surrogacy and its corollary - a prohibitive law, and instead focus on the notions of reproductive justice and dignity of labour of the surrogates via transparency in finances, medical practices and the relationships embedded within surrogacy.