Actor Priyanka Chopra and singer-actor Nick Jonas took to social media on Friday, January 21, to share that they have welcomed a child via surrogacy. “We are overjoyed to confirm that we have welcomed a baby via surrogate. We respectfully ask for privacy during this special time as we focus on our family,” Priyanka and Nick said in an identical post on Instagram.
Priyanka and Nick, who have been married for three years, join the long list of celebrities in India who have opted to have a child via surrogacy. In 2013, Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri had welcomed their youngest son, AbRam, via surrogacy. Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao also have a son via surrogacy. Shilpa Shetty, Farah Khan, Karan Johar, Sunny Leone are the other Bollywood celebrities who have welcomed home children via surrogacy.
In India, commercial and altruistic surrogacy is allowed, though a Bill has recently been passed in the Parliament to ban commercial surrogacy. Altruistic surrogacy means surrogacy in which no charges, expenses, or monetary incentive, except medical expenses, are given to the surrogate mother. "Commercial surrogacy” means commercialisation of surrogacy services or procedures including selling or buying of human embryo by payment or remuneration to the surrogate mother. The new Bill mulls some changes in the surrogacy process in India. Only Indian couples who have been legally married for at least five years would be allowed to opt for surrogacy. The bill seeks to “allow ethical altruistic surrogacy to the intending infertile Indian married couple between the age of 23-50 years and 26-55 years for female and male, respectively.”
A woman should be allowed to act as a surrogate mother only once and should be a close relative of the intending couple and “should be an ever married woman having a child of her own and between the age of 25-35 years,” as per the Bill. The Bill provides for constitution of surrogacy boards at national and state levels, as well as that the intending couples should not abandon such a child under any condition.
Currently, in India, according to guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), surrogacy by assisted conception should normally be considered only for patients for whom it would be physically or medically impossible or undesirable to carry a baby to term. A surrogate mother should not be over 45 years of age. Before accepting a woman as a possible surrogate for a particular couple’s child, the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinic must ensure (and put on record) that the woman satisfies all the testable criteria to go through a successful full-term pregnancy.
A relative, a known person, as well as a person unknown to the couple may act as a surrogate mother for the couple. In the case of a relative acting as a surrogate, the relative should belong to the same generation as the women desiring the surrogate. A surrogate mother, carrying a child biologically unrelated to her, must register as a patient in her own name. While registering she must mention that she is a surrogate mother and provide all the necessary information about the genetic parents such as names, addresses, etc. A surrogate mother must relinquish in writing all parental rights concerning the offspring and vice versa. Sex selection is not allowed.
A child born through surrogacy must be adopted by the genetic (biological) parents unless they can establish through genetic (DNA) fingerprinting (of which the records will be maintained in the clinic) that the child is theirs.