News Analysis India

Tag: Assisted Reproductive Technology

  • Couple moves Bombay HC seeking nod to complete surrogacy procedure

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: A couple on Tuesday moved the Bombay High Court seeking permission to complete a surrogacy procedure they had initiated in a city-based hospital before the new Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Act came into effect.

    The plea was submitted before a vacation bench led by Justice N W Sambre seeking urgent hearing, and it will be heard on Wednesday. The petitioner’s counsel, PV Dinesh, also sought that as interim relief, the couple be permitted to transfer their cryopreserved embryos from the said hospital to another fertility clinic.

    The lawyer said that while the couple’s fertilised embryo had been preserved by the hospital for transfer to a surrogate, the new Act came into effect in January this year. The new Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Act prohibits surrogacy unless it is purely altruistic.

    And among other stringent provisions, it mandates that only a married relative with a child of her own can act as a surrogate. The respondent hospital therefore, put the couple’s procedure on hold stating that they will need a court order to resume the procedure.

    The hospital’s counsel Anita Castellino told the bench that the provisions of the new Act were comprehensive and complex and that she needed time to file a comprehensive reply to the plea. However, the court said it will hear the matter on Wednesday before passing any orders.

  • Gujarat HC orders collection of critical COVID-19-patient’s sample as wife wants child

    By PTI
    AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court has directed a hospital in Vadodara to conduct an IVF/Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) procedure for the collection of sample of a critical COVID-19 patient having slim chances of survival, after his wife expressed the desire to bear his child.

    The HC issued the order issued on Tuesday, considering it as an “extraordinary urgent situation”.

    After an urgent hearing of a petition filed by the patient’s wife, Justice Ashutosh J Shastri directed the Vadodara-based hospital to conduct the IVF (In vitro fertilisation)/ART procedure for the collection of his sample and keep it stored in an appropriate place as per medical advice.

    The petitioner wants to conceive his child through the IVF/ART technology, but the hospital was not allowing this unless she got a court order directing it to collect his sample, her lawyer Nilay Patel said.

    Hence, she approached the high court on Tuesday with an urgent plea, he said.

    The HC said “the ad interim relief is granted in an extraordinary urgent situation before the court and the same shall be subject to the outcome of the petition”.

    The court also issued notices to the state government and the hospital’s director, and sought their response on July 23.

    The petitioner approached the court, saying her COVID-19-infected husband was suffering from multi-organ failure and was on life support system, and according to doctors, he has slim chances of survival, Patel said.

    The HC directed the petitioner and the assistant government pleader to communicate its order to the hospital for collection of the patient’s sample, looking at the criticality of the situation when his health condition is said to be deteriorating.