India a hot spot for gay couples keen on babies

MUMBAI: They don’t make a traditional family portrait, but there is steady stream of gay couples coming to the city for infertility treatment to h

ave babies. The ongoing debate in court on Article 377 notwithstanding, India is being seen as an affordable haven for gay couples, whether married or not, who want to be parents.

In fact, in the last week of September, city’s infertility specialist Dr Gautam Allahabadia spoke at the fourth world congress of the World Association of Reproductive Medicine in Mexico about his Bandra clinic’s experience with 12 gay couples. “From 2005 to 2007, 12 same-sex gay couples were treated with a total of 16 oocyte retrieval cycles,” he told the audience, which included the creator of Dolly, the cloned sheep, Dr K H S Campbell.

The 16 cycles were done using surrogate mothers. All the gay couples hailed from foreign countries, including France, Spain, Sweden and Israel. Six couples got pregnant, with four surrogate mothers having already delivered. “The first couple got a boy and girl, the second and third got a boy each,” said the doctor. While the fourth couple’s surrogate delivered prematurely and the twins died, the fifth and sixth couples are awaiting delivery next month.

At a time when Union ministers are caught in a war of words over Article 377, which considers homosexuality as an abnormal act, gay activists and doctors point out that guidelines laid down by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) in 2002 allowed Indian clinics to treat same-sex couples with donor egg IVF and surrogacy.

Gay rights activist Manvendra Singh Gohil, better recognised after his interview with American TV host Oprah Winfrey as the Gay Prince of Rajpipla, is happy with the development. “Most of us are fond of children. It’s natural that gays and lesbians want children. Adoption and IVF treatment is hence emerging as an option,” he told TOI. He gave the example of a lesbian couple in Ahmedabad who had used donor sperm to have a child. See India a hot spot for gay couples keen on babies
Times of India, India