Science and Tech
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.
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The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill relates
to surrogacy, an infertility treatment, where a third person, a woman, is the
surrogate mother.
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In ART, treatments can be availed by the
commissioning couple themselves and it is not always necessary that a third
person is involved.
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Surrogacy is allowed for only Indian
married couples.
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ART procedures are open to married
couples, live-in partners, single women, and also foreigners.
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A 2015 notification prohibits commissioning of surrogacy in Republic of
India by foreigners or OCI or PIO cardholders, however NRIs holding Indian
citizenship will avail surrogacy.
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Foreigners will visit India under
medical touristry to avail ART services. underneath the Surrogacy Bill,
therell be a National Surrogacy Board that may be involved in policymaking,
and act as a superior body, and State Boards that may act as executive
bodies.
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The ART Bill provides for a National
Board, with the powers vested in a civil court under the Code of Civil
Procedure.
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According to the Health Ministry, the
calculable range of clinics practising surrogacy in India is probably going
less than 1,000, whereas that of these practising ART is probably going over
than 40,000.
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ART bank under the Bill, ART can include
all techniques that arrange to obtain a gestation by handling the semen or the
oocyte outside the human body, and transferring the oosphere or the embryo into
the genital system of a lady.
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It defines an ART bank as an
organisation set up to produce gamete or seed, oocytes, or oocyte donors to ART
clinics or their patients.
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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.
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