Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 in India: Problems And Prospects

Surrogacy is one of the unique methods of creating new human beings by human beings, irrespective of the existence of biological or natural process of giving birth to new children. Every new technology has some merits and demerits; as such, surrogacy is not an exception. It was discovered for bringing smile in the face of childless parents; therefore, it had some benevolent purpose. But, with the passage of time it is severely misused by some self-centred and mean-minded persons for malevolent purposes, who are always interested in earning money by exploiting the surrogates throughout the process. This situation is prevalent not only in India, but in other countries of the world also, more specifically in the developing and underdeveloped countries, where huge number of population is suffering from poverty and inequality of income. At this juncture, India has enacted the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021. The Act has prohibited Commercial Surrogacy in India. Therefore, it is high time to think about problems and prospects of the Act, otherwise this noble method of surrogacy will lose its cherished goals of becoming a boon for mankind and will turn into a bane for the human beings. In this backdrop, the study would like to analyse the nature and purpose of surrogacy, to probe into the existing legislations on surrogacy throughout the world including India.