A foreigner or a foreign couple not resident in India, or an NRI individual/couple seeking surrogacy in India, will have to appoint a local guardian who will be legally responsible for the care of the surrogate mother during and after pregnancy until the baby is delivered to the parent/parents or local guardian.
Foreign couples seeking surrogacy in India must submit a certificate from the foreign ministry of the country of their origin or embassy in India stating that the child or children born through surrogacy in India shall be permitted in their country as a biological child or children of the infertile couple/individual. The draft bill also makes it mandatory that only Indian citizens have the right to act as surrogate mothers.
To take care of the health of the surrogate mother, it will be made necessary that there be a minimum two years’ interval between two deliveries. The draft bill says semen banks must obtain semen only from men between 21 and 45 years of age, and arrange to obtain oocytes from women between 21 and 35. Banks will have to advertise for gamete donors and surrogates, who may be compensated financially by the bank. “No woman shall donate oocytes more than six times in her life, with not less than a three-month interval between oocyte pickups,” it says. Gynaecologists say the absence of a legal framework had so far led to college students “selling” semen and eggs for pocket money.