“Do you want them to have do the same as you?” she asked.
“This is my family, my community, my custom,” shrugged Shabnum.
Mothers at Patel’s clinic — there were 190 last year, a vast increase on previous years — live in a hostel so they are not forced to do housework and are sheltered from inquisitive neighbors or drunken husbands.
One couple who used the clinic are Nikki and Bobby Bains from Ilford, UK. Within a week they will fly to Anand to pick up their second child. Their first, Daisy, was born to a surrogate mother nearly two years ago after “a 13-year struggle.”
Bobby, 46. said: “It’s very difficult to find surrogates in the UK. There are lots of delays and surrogates are very rare. We had a couple of bad experiences too. So we ended up with 10 attempts, all in India. It has cost around US$125,000 in medical fees.
“We call Daisy little Miss India. We are Sikh, the surrogate was Muslim, the egg donor was Hindu. So she encapsulates the whole country,” he said. “No one can say we are exploiting anyone. They get paid the equivalent of 10 or 15 years’ salary. At least you know the money goes to a good cause.”
Such care is rare in the sector, say campaigners.
Instead, there is “rampant use of unethical practices,” with mothers and prospective parents being exploited by unscrupulous middlemen.
The bill limits the age of surrogate mothers to 35, imposes a maximum of five pregnancies, including their own children and makes medical insurance mandatory.
The proposed changes have provoked fierce debate in a society that remains broadly conservative. Many refuse to believe that a woman can carry a child without sexual intercourse. Few of the surrogate mothers have the full backing of their families.
Disowned
“My community should be proud of me for what I’m doing, not criticize me,” said Shabnum, whose parents have disowned her.
The draft bill bans post-natal contact between a surrogate mother and the child she has borne.
“It is natural that when it is inside you for nine months you have some feelings. But from the beginning we are conditioned not to involve our emotions,” Pushpa said. “When they take the child, those days are a bit tough. I know I have done a good thing in helping someone have a child and a happy life, but I think about them a lot.”
Shabnum, 26, said text messages and photos from the parents of the child to whom she had given birth made her very happy — until they tailed off.
The bill makes any such contact a criminal offense punishable by fines or imprisonment of up to two years “or something appropriate like that,” Sharma said.
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