Karan Johar embraces fatherhood through surrogacy: Know all about the practice, its risks and legalities

Johar's decision came at a time when surrogacy has been in the grey legal area in India.

New Delhi: In his biography – The Unsuitable Boy – Bollywood's ace filmmaker Karan Johar expressed the desire to become a father.

Now, finally living his dream, Kjo, as he is fondly called, proudly announced the arrival of his twins – Yash and Roohi – into his life through surrogacy on Sunday.

By opting for surrogacy, Karan has joined the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Tusshar Kapoor, Aamir Khan, Sohail Khan and Farah Khan to have a baby through the practice.

“The birth registrations were done on Friday,” BMC executive health officer Dr Padmaja Keskar was quoted in a Times of India report.

Johar's decision came at a time when surrogacy has been under the legal scanner in India. This means that the draft surrogacy Bill that had been cleared by the Cabinet in August, 2016 has not yet been tabled and passed as law.

If this had happened, Karan would probably not have been allowed to go through with the process, since the Bill prohibits commercial surrogacy, which includes stopping foreigners from commissioning surrogacy in India, while also making it illegal for single parents, same-sex couples and those in live-in relationships to opt for surrogacy.

However, as important as it is to understand the legalities of the surrogacy process, it is equally essential to know all about it from the medical point of view.

What is surrogacy?

Simply put, surrogacy is when another woman carries and gives birth to a baby for the couple who want to have a child.

Surrogacy works as an option when a couple is unable to bear a child due to one or both partners being medically unfit to conceive.

How does it work?

Another woman is artificially inseminated with the sperm of the father, thereby carrying the baby full-term and delivering it for the couple.

In some situations a donor sperm can also be used. This is traditional surrogacy, also known as partial surrogacy.

Another form of surrogacy is gestational surrogacy, also known as host or full surrogacy, wherein the father's/donor's sperms fertilize the eggs from the mother, following which, the embryo is placed into the uterus of the surrogate, who carries the child to term and delivers it. In this process, the biological mother is the woman whose eggs are used, while the surrogate is called the birth mother.

What are the risks associated with surrogacy?

Surrogacy risks depend upon the surrogacy type that is being undertaken by the couple. Generally, the risks of surrogacy are more or less the same as those associated with IVF.

As per the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, there is also a risk of transferring HIV and hepatitis, and so screening of everyone involved in surrogacy involving IUI is recommended, and required in surrogacy arrangements involving IVF.

If a registered donor at a licensed clinic is used, the donor will automatically be screened.

What are the surrogacy laws in India?

Since commercial surrogacy has been legal in India since 2002, the country has become the main destination for surrogacy. Indian surrogates have been increasingly popular with intended parents in industrialized nations because of the relatively low cost.

Back in 2002, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) listed the guidelines for surrogacy thereby making the practice legal, but without legislative backing.

This gave an immediate boost to the surrogacy industry which consisted of lax laws and no enforcements.

However, the necessity of legal protection was enforced through the case of Baby Manji vs Union of India. As per a report in The Indian Express, the case consisted of a Japanese couple who commissioned a surrogate mother in India but their marriage ended in divorce. The single male parent wasn’t granted the child's custody and the mother refused to accept it. Therefore, Japan gave the child a humanitarian visa and allowed the paternal grandmother to take the child on behalf of her son, given his genetic relation with the baby. During the case, however, the Supreme Court recognised that the parent of a surrogate child may be a male and recognised surrogacy as a positive practice.

In 2010, a draft ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) Bill was formulated, but was never passed as a law.

However, due to many loopholes and problems associated with stigmatization faced by the surrogate mothers, the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 was introduced in Lok Sabha in November. The cabinet approved bill, however, has not been passed yet.

The Bill completely abolishes commercial surrogacy, which means “surrogacy or its related procedures undertaken for a monetary benefit or reward (in cash or kind) exceeding the basic medical expenses and insurance coverage”.

The Bill only permits altruistic surrogacy, wherein, the surrogate mother is a close relative of the commissioning parents. The infertility of the couple also needs to be proven.

Once the Bill is passed, it will make commercial surrogacy, abandoning the surrogate child, exploitation of surrogate mother, selling/ import of human embryo punishable.

The Bill also prohibits single parents, homosexuals, live-in couples from becoming commissioning parents. It does not allow childless or unmarried women to be surrogate mothers either.