Dear Colleague

Infertility is 15% in all married couple in India which amounts to almost 15 million couples in India. This number is bigger than cardiac, diabetes, renal disease combined. Hence, India needs to have a well regulated ethical treatment available to the society by gynecologists all over India.

We need to have a liberal ART law which is ethical and need ART to be regulated so that it is not exploited by untrained and non-medical personnel. ART BILL introduced about by the government of India has been made without consultation with major stakeholders like IMA, ISAR, FOGSI, IFS, INSTAR, FPS (I) , USI and other such organizations.

 Hence, this proposed Bill in the current form is not community and society friendly, thus not acceptable. We strongly object to this ART BILL under the following key issues.

  1. The age criterion to avail ART services should be the legal age i.e., 18 years and above and marriage should not be made a compulsion to avail ART services.
  2. Medical acts are done in good faith and thus, presuming a doctor to be guilty unless the guilt is proved goes again the very basic spirit of the law of the land and as such cannot be incorporated. Like in PCPNDT proposal for amendment, we also propose for this BILL that Doctors per se should not be projected and treated as criminals.
  3. Handling of Semen outside the body should not be brought under the umbrella  of ART Bill as this a basic service at the primary level. Hence, the treatment of IUI should be removed.
  4. ART Bank provisions are too vague and arbitrary, thus the said provisions should relooked and reviewed.
  5. The number of oocytes to be retrieved and embryos to be implanted shall be the professional’s decision and not of state authorities.
  6. Commercial surrogacy helps only 2% of the patients and thus a well regulated, ethical commercial surrogacy not only for Indian nationals but also for foreign nationals including OCI/PIO card holders be allowed.

 If you all agree to the above issues, then please go to www.ima-india.org/artbill and put your signatures as support to the cause. We are targeting 50,000 signatures with a week.

 

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