Central
Govt employee opts for a surrogate child – What says CCS (Leave) Rules..?
Can Central Govt
Female Employees Opting for Surrogate Pregnancy Claim Maternity Leave?
Parenthood is a gift
of god. Thanks to the development in medical sciences, childless couples can
now opt for surrogate pregnancies. If women employees of Central Government
organizations opt for surrogate pregnancies, can they claim maternity leave?
Women employees of
Central Government establishments are given Maternity leave for a period of 180
days and male employees are given Paternity Leave for a period of 15 days if
they choose to adopt babies. At present, there is no leave entitlements for
parents of the surrogate child.
Let’s see what the
Indian medical Research Council has to say about couples who choose to have
babies through surrogate mothers.
Surrogacy: General
Considerations
A child born through
surrogacy must be adopted by the genetic (biological) parents unless they can
establish through genetic (DNA) fingerprinting (of which the records will be
maintained in the clinic) that the child is theirs.Guidelines for ART Clinics
in India ICMR/NAMS
Surrogacy by assisted
conception should normally be considered only for patients for whom it would be
physically or medically impossible/undesirable to carry a baby to term.
Payments to surrogate
mothers should cover all genuine expenses associated with the pregnancy.
Documentary evidence of the financial arrangement for surrogacy must be
available. The ART centre should not be involved in this monetary aspect.
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regarding surrogacy should not be made by the ART clinic. The responsibility of
finding a surrogate mother, through advertisement or otherwise, should rest
with the couple, or a semen bank.
A surrogate mother
should not be over 45 years of age. Before accepting a woman as a possible
surrogate for a particular couple’s child, the ART clinic must ensure (and put
on record) that the woman satisfies all the testable criteria to go through a
successful full-term pregnancy.
A relative, a known
person, as well as a person unknown to the couple may act as a surrogate mother
for the couple. In the case of a relative acting as a surrogate, the relative
should belong to the same generation as the women desiring the surrogate.
A prospective
surrogate mother must be tested for HIV and shown to be seronegative for this
virus just before embryo transfer. She must also provide a written certificate
that (a) she has not had a drug intravenously administered into her through a
shared syringe, (b) she has not undergone blood transfusion; and (c) she and
her husband (to the best of her/his knowledge) has had no extramarital
relationship in the last six months.
(This is to ensure
that the person would not come up with symptoms of HIV infection during the
period of surrogacy.) The prospective surrogate mother must also declare that
she will not use drugs intravenously, and not undergo blood transfusion
excepting of blood obtained through a certified blood bank. No woman may act as
a surrogate more than thrice in her lifetime
Source: 7thpaycommissionnews.in
