The Lok Sabha has passed the Assisted Reproductive Technology- ART (Regulation) Bill, 2020 that proposes the establishment of a national registry and registration authority for all clinics and medical professionals serving in the field.
Context
The Lok Sabha has passed the Assisted Reproductive Technology- ART (Regulation) Bill, 2020 that proposes the establishment of a national registry and registration authority for all clinics and medical professionals serving in the field.
What is ART?
- Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is used to treat infertility. It includes fertility treatments that handle both a woman's egg and a man's sperm.
- The Bill defines ART to include all techniques that seek to obtain a pregnancy by handling the sperm or the oocyte (immature egg cell) outside the human body and transferring the gamete or the embryo into the reproductive system of a woman.
- Examples of ART services include
- gamete (sperm or oocyte) donation
- in-vitro-fertilisation (fertilising an egg in the lab)
- gestational surrogacy (the child is not biologically related to surrogate mother)
- ART services will be provided through: (i) ART clinics, which offer ART related treatments and procedures, and (ii) ART banks, which store and supply gametes.
Difference between Surrogacy and ART
- Surrogacy is an infertility treatment in which a woman serves as the surrogate mother.
- While, in ART, treatments can be obtained by the commissioning couple themselves, and a third person is not necessarily required.
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Key-highlights of the Bill
- Conditions for gamete donation and supply
- Only registered ART bank: Screening of gamete donors, collection and storage of semen, and provision of oocyte donors can only be done by a registered ART bank.
- Eligible age of donor: A bank can obtain semen from males between 21 and 55 years of age, and oocytes from females between 23 and 35 years of age.
- An oocyte donor should be an ever-married woman having at least one alive child of her own (minimum three years of age).
- The woman can donate oocytes only once in her life and not more than seven oocytes can be retrieved from her.
- A bank cannot supply gamete of a single donor to more than one commissioning couple (couple seeking services).
Conditions for offering ART services
- Informed consent: ART procedures can only be carried out with the written informed consent of both the party seeking ART services as well as the donor.
- Insurance coverage: The party seeking ART services will be required to provide insurance coverage in the favour of the oocyte donor (for any loss, damage, or death of the donor).
- Checking genetic disease: The Bill also requires checking for genetic diseases before the embryo implantation.
Need of the Bill
- India today is a hub of the global fertility industry with medical tourists flocking to the country for a variety of services.
- The reproductive section of the Indian medical tourism business at more than $450 million in 2008, and predicted that it would grow to $6 billion a year within a decade.
