GUIDELINES ON ASSISTED
REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY CLINICS IN INDIA
Secretary, Family Welfare, Shri J.V.R.
Prasad Rao said that infertility is a problem which has a direct
bearing on the emotional and the social aspect of the people.
In India where of 23-25 per cent of the pregnancies are unwanted,
the other spectrum of the problem is that 10-15 per cent of the
couples in the country are infertile. The Guidelines on Assisted
Reproductive Technology (ART) Clinics is an important step and
addresses, the important issues of infertility, surrogacy, rights
of the child born through various ART technologies etc. The Secretary
released these guidelines on ART Clinics in India for public debate,
here today.
Speaking on the occasion the DG,ICMR
Prof N.K.Ganguly said that the document deals with the social
and cultural ethos of the country. The affordability and feasibility
of ART Services is a matter of concern and this aspect has to
be looked into. He also called for need to formulate a proper
IEC document that would be helpful for behavioural change.
The Indian Council of Medical Research,
New Delhi in collaboration with National Academy of Medical Sciences,
New Delhi had constituted a Committee of Experts from different
disciplines i.e. gynaecologists, biologists representatives from
legal/social/professional bodies, representatives from various
ART clinics from different parts of the country, to formulate
the "National Guidelines for accreditation, supervision and
regulation of ART clinics in India".
The Code of Practice described in
the draft guidelines deals with all those areas, which affect
the doctors, scientists and patients. Salient feature of the draft
are as follows:
Ø The ART Clinic must not
be a party to any commercial element in donor programmes or in
gestational surrogacy.
Ø No ART procedure shall be
done without the spouse’s consent.
Ø Sex selection at any stage
i.e. both before and after fertilization or abortion of embryos
of any particular sex should not be permitted except to avoid
the risk of transmission of a genetic abnormality assessed through
genetic testing of biological parents or through pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis (PGD).
Ø Use of sperm donated by
a relative or a known friend of either the wife or the husband
should not be permitted. It will be the responsibility of the
ART clinic to obtain sperm from appropriate banks.
Ø The committee has recommended
accepting semen only from Semen Bank and not from the individual.
Hence it has also been recommended that Semen Bank should be an
independent organization, if set up by an ART clinic it must operate
as a separate identity.
Ø No relative or a person
known to the couple may act as surrogate.
Ø Surrogacy by assisted conception
should normally be considered only for patients for whom it would
be physically or medically impossible/undesirable to carry a baby
to term.
Ø The genetic (Biological)
parents must adopt a child born through surrogacy.
Ø After a specific consent,
the embryos may be stored for five years and stored embryos may
be used either for other couple or for research after taking the
consent of the couple to whom the embryos belongs.
Ø The sale or transfer of
human embryos or any part thereof, or of gametes in any form and
in way that is directly or indirectly to any party outside the
country must be prohibited.
Ø Human cloning for delivering
replicas must be banned.
Ø Stem cell cloning and research
on embryos (less than 15 days old) needs to be encouraged.
Ø A child born through ART
should be presumed to be the legitimate child to the couple, born
within wedlock and all the attendant rights of parentage, support
and inheritance.
Ø Though there is no legal
bar on an unmarried or single woman going for AID (Artificial
insemination with donor), however it is universally recommended
that AID should be performed only on married woman and that, too,
with the written consent of her husband.
Ø There is an urgent need
to have infertility treated like any other disease the expense
of dealing which by authorised ART clinics should be reimbursable
e.g. by the Government or other employer or by the health insurance
company, but for one child only.
The members of the expert committee
are Dr. B.N. Chakravarty (Chairman), Dr. T.C. Anand Kumar, Dr.
P.M. Bhargava, Dr. Sulochana Gunasheela, Dr. Sudarsan Ghosh Dastidar,
Dr. M. Kochhar, Dr. Kamini Rao, Dr. Mehroo D. Hansotia, Dr. Sadhana
K. Desai, Dr. C.P. Puri, Dr. Firuza R. Parikh, Shri Rajeev Dhavan,
Dr. Mira Shiva, Dr. Lalrintluangi, Dr. V.K. Behal, Dr. Vasantha
Muthuswamy, Shri N.C. Saxena, Dr. R.S. Sharma and Dr. Nomita Bedi.
