Tough adoption rules for single people is forcing them to go for surrogacy with both eggs and sperms donated by others.
Nikole, a 45-year-old UK woman is single and does not have a male partner. Her ovaries have stopped producing eggs as she has entered menopause but, believe it or not, she will soon have a made-to-order baby of her own. Strange as it may sound, stringent adoption rules for single people in the West are forcing them to acquire babies through surrogacy where both egg and sperm are donated by other people.
"For Nikole, we will look for an egg donor as well as a sperm donor," said Dr Manish Banker, MD and director of Pulse hospital for women, Ahmedabad. "After in vitro fertilisation of the egg, we will transplant the embryo into a surrogate mother's womb, as Nikole's uterus is not capable of carrying a baby. After nine months, Nikole will have a child to adopt." But isn't acquiring a baby for adoption in this manner - i.e., through surrogacy with the help of the egg and sperm of donors - no different from adopting a child?
The problem is that adopting a child in the West is not as easy as one may think. Dr Banker said Nikole had tried to adopt a child but stringent rules for singles did not allow her to do so. She then contacted Pulse women's hospital for a child through surrogacy, he said.
However, as Nikole would not be the biological parent of the baby born through surrogacy, Dr Banker has asked her to first get her embassy's consent, and find out whether the child would be given British citizenship.
IVF experts say a growing number of single men and women are coming forward to have kids through surrogacy in this manner. But Dr Nayna Patel, an IVF expert, appears to have no enthusiasm for such parenthood. She said she had received several e-mails from single people who wanted to adopt a baby born through 'third-party' surrogacy. "I had a letter from a 40-year-old Sikh male in New York," Nayna Patel said. "He is single and has three sisters, all of whom are single. They wanted a kid through surrogacy but I humbly refused as we need to do a lot of background research to know whether the child would be in safe hands."
She added that she makes sure if a single woman who wants a child through surrogacy, wants to use her eggs with a donor's sperm.
"Otherwise, how can she be considered the child's biological parent?" Dr Patel said. "If it is not possible to use the single man or woman's own sperm (or egg) for the IVF procedure, I do not take up the case."
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