Parliamentary panel says ART is not suitable for live-in or same-sex couples

Given the Indian family structure, social milieu and norms, it will not be very easy to accept a child whose parents are together but not legally married, the 129-page Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare On the report, the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) (Regulation) Bill, 2020, was introduced in Parliament earlier this week.

The committee stated in its report that the live-in couples and the couples to avail the facility of ART, taking into account the best interests of the child born through ART services and other parents’ issues in the matter of their separation. It would not be appropriate to allow same-sex couples.

“People’s rights in same-sex relationships and live-in relationships are often redefined, however, the ART bill supported the recommendations of the Select Committee on Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill 2019, which upheld the definition of” couple ” Hai and the Live Committee said in their report, “Couples and same-sex couples are excluded from surrogacy services.

In its observation, the committee expressed its anguish to show that at present there are only six IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics in the government sector, namely All India Institute of Medical Sciences; Lady Harding Hospital; Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh; King George’s Medical University, Lucknow; Army hospitals in Delhi and Pune, while the remaining thousands of IVF centers were in the private sector.

“The committee, therefore, recommends that the government should ensure that every medical college or premier government hospital / institute should have IVF / ART facilities to enable the general poor public to avail the services of ART.”

Noting that India has become one of the major hubs for ART, the committee said that “only ART has guidelines, and this law still exists.”

Currently clinics in India provide almost all ART services – gametes donation, intrauterine insemination (IUI), in-vitro fertilization (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT), and gestational surrogacy.

The committee suggested in its report that time is needed to oversee the law on ART services and to ensure that practices such as commercialization of gametes, fetal scarcity, multiple implantation by the rich, and sex-selection are prohibited.

It adds that ART services should be guided by a humanitarian approach, not in the fashion of an industry approach.

“A monitoring mechanism has to be put in place under the overall guidance of the National Board to prevent unbridled commercialization of ART services,” the committee said.