ART Bill on IVF may come up in winter session

The long-awaited bill to regulate the mushrooming business of assisted reproduction — comprising surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures — is likely to be tabled in the Parliament’s winter session.
The guidelines, framed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), have been pending since 2010.
They were amended in 2013 and have undergone slight changes this year, said Dr R Sharma, deputy director general, ICMR.

The ART (Regulation) Bill proposes to make it mandatory for all IVF clinics and ART (assisted reproductive technology) banks to get accredited, following which licences will be issued to them. According to Sharma, of the over 20,000 clinics projected to be in the country, only 274, including 112 ART banks, are enrolled with the ICMR.

“Our focus is to frame ethical and legal guidelines which will focus on health-care of donors and surrogates. There are several grey areas in this industry, especially when foreign nationals are concerned. All these issues will be tackled,” Sharma said at a conference of Indian Society for Third Party Assisted Reproduction Sunday.
The bill will demand health insurance of surrogates and sperm/oocyte donors along with proper legal rights.