On December 1, 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.
Features of the ART Bill
- The Bill says a child born through ART shall be deemed to be a biological child of the commissioning couple. The child will be entitled to all the rights and privileges available to a natural child from the commissioning couple, and the donor will have to relinquish all parental rights over the child.
- Under the Bill, ART will include all techniques that attempt to obtain a pregnancy by handling the sperm or the oocyte outside the human body, and transferring the gamete or the embryo into the reproductive system of a woman.
- The bill defines an ART bank as an organisation set up to supply sperm or semen, oocytes, or oocyte donors to ART clinics or their patients.
- The ART Bill provides for a National Board, with the powers vested in a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure. The board will advise the Centre on policy matters.
- The National Registry will have a central database on all clinics and banks in the country.
- The Registration Authority’s functions will include: to grant, suspend, or cancel the registration of ART centres;
- The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill relates to surrogacy, an infertility treatment, where a third person, a woman, is the surrogate mother. In ART, treatments can be availed by the commissioning couple themselves and it is not always necessary that a third person is involved.
- Surrogacy is allowed for only Indian married couples. ART procedures are open to married couples, live-in partners, single women, and also foreigners. However, the bill excludes two categories — LGBTQIA+ and single men.
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