by RANJITA BISWAS
India’s matinee idol Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan announced recently that they had their third child through surrogacy. Gossip columns said that Gauri Khan, a mother of two teenagers, had tried to conceive for the last couple of years and at last resorted to surrogacy.
The announcement, coming after intense speculation by the media, caught fans by surprise; this is something not openly discussed in Indian society, least of all by a celebrity. But the veil of secrecy surrounding surrogacy was lifted earlier by another Bollywood celebrity, Aamir Khan, who with his director wife Kiran Rao went for a surrogate baby in 2011.
Doctors specialising in IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation) say that celebrity endorsement has suddenly made it fashionable among the swish set.
But to many in small towns and slums, surrogacy has become familiar for the possibility of earning money through carrying a child for another couple. The clients are usually non-resident Indians (NRIs) and white couples from western countries where commercial surrogacy is illegal.
The mothers are often ignorant and illiterate, and prone to exploitation in this ‘unorganised sector’. There is no legal framework to protect them.
The 2012 report ‘Surrogacy Motherhood: Ethical or Commercial’ by the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research (CSR), found that about half of the surrogate mothers surveyed were paid between Rs 300,000 (4,900 dollars) and Rs 400,000 (6,500 dollars). Of those interviewed, 68 in the capital, Delhi, and 78 in the financial capital Mumbai said they were working as domestics earning around Rs 3,000 (50 dollars) a month.
“But often that’s half the story,” CSR director Ranjana Kumari told IPS. “The woman gets a small instalment at conception. If she has an abortion, she doesn’t get anything. In case of unhealthy pregnancies, abortion pills are given by doctors to terminate the pregnancy, and surrogates often think it is a miscarriage. In absence of any regulation, poor women often get exploited.”
“Commissioning parents” – as they are known in the business – pay on average a total of Rs 1.2 million (20,000 dollars) for a surrogate baby (more if twins are born). Much of this money goes to the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) clinic, agents and lawyers. “Most often the woman gets about half of what is promised,” Kumari says.
Inter Press Service for more
(Thanks to reader)