India recently announced a ban on surrogate services for foreign couples and notices have been sent to fertility clinics to not accept any more overseas clients. India was becoming a major hub for surrogacy because it’s easy to find women who are willing to be surrogates. A surrogate pregnancy costs around $20,000 in India, compared to around $150,000 in US, BBC Website reported. But the Indian government believes that poor, illiterate women are being exploited. “It’s a sad thing that people are so desperate that they’re willing to rent out their bodies for something like this,” says Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Director General of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). On the other hand, Indian surrogates feel hurt by government ban on foreign clients. “If we felt we were being exploited, why would we come here?” says a surrogate mother Devi Parmar, “Is the government going to come to our homes to feed us if we’re starving?”
