Couples with medical condition can avail donor gametes
In response to dozens of women approaching the Supreme Court last year after the government banned the use of donor gametes, the government has stepped back to allow the use of a donor gamete (ova or sperms) in case one of the “intending couple” suffers from a “medical condition”.
An official gazette notification by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued last week laid down the amendment in the Surrogacy (Regulation) Rules, 2022, which also emphasised that the medical condition necessitating the use of a donor must be certified by the District Medical Board.
The change came after a Supreme Court bench, while permitting more than two dozen petitioners to use donor eggs to become mothers through surrogacy, observed that “the very purpose of surrogacy would get defeated by such rules” [not allowing donor gametes].
This is being considered a significant change in the surrogacy law and has won the approval of experts in the field of surrogacy.
B Kalpana, head of the infertility committee at the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India told Deccan Herald that this change in the rules is a “welcome decision” because both the number and quality of eggs in women come down with age and even in some young women, the number of eggs is very less.
