Silent Voices: A Critical Analysis of Surrogacy’s Legal Journey in India

After two decades of debates, the law governing surrogacy in India was passed during the winter session of the Parliament, and Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2018 came into existence. This new law prohibits commercial surrogacy on grounds of preventing exploitation of surrogate women and to protect the rights of children born out of surrogacy. The Act allows only ‘ethical altruistic’ surrogacy. This commentary criticises the false premise of the legislative understanding of identifying patriarchal family structure as exploitation free and argues that the complete ban of commercial surrogacy is not the answer to the exploitation of women who act as surrogates in the current Indian political economy. The author identifies the process of new surrogacy law as a Hindutva morality phase where the inherent violence and exploitation within the patriarchal family system is hidden by the state acting as a benevolent lord