ETHICS OF FERTILITY TOURISM AND COMMERCIAL SURROGACY IN INDIA UNDER THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract

Fertility Tourism is the latest sector of Medical Tourism (MT), wherein health seekers travel with the intention of attaining what is not available or prohibited in their home countries by making use of extreme applications of Artificial Reproductive Technologies (ARTs). Fertility tourists, more stringently infertile couples who are unable to conceive naturally, and more comprehensively gay/lesbian and single men/women who are still fertile or past reproductive prime but desire for children without marriage, procreation and family, travel to other countries to hire wombs-for-rent, that is, surrogate mothers who are legally made available through contracts and commerce to bear children. This is the latest revolution of Fertility Tourism for Commercial Surrogacy (FTCS), which is a multimillion industry in India because India, with CS Law (2002), renders hightech facilities with low-cost procedures of ARTs. While FTCS offers hopes to the fertility tourists, it is certainly manipulation of life and violation of dignity and rights. A probe into this problematic revolution of FTCS in India under HR perspective is a timely needed research.