childless couples

Singapore's childless couples come to India

Singapore, Nov 15 -- A ban on surrogate motherhood in Singapore is driving childless couples overseas to rent wombs - in India, the US and Russia, doctors said in a published report Tuesday.

Cheng Li Chang, medical director of the Thomson Fertility Centre, told The Straits Times that he has seen several patients going abroad.

He cited an Indonesian couple in their early 30s. The wife was not able to conceive, but they found a surrogate mother in the US and are now the proud parents of a child.

Ministry of Health guidelines forbid assisted reproduction clinics in Singapore from carrying out surrogacy procedures.

In another case, a childless couple in Singapore searched the Internet for a surrogate mother. They found a fertility physician at the Dr. L.H. Hiranandani Centre for Human Reproduction in Mumbai.

The surrogate mother is now more than nine weeks' pregnant with a foetus conceived from the man's sperm and his wife's egg. The woman carrying the child will be paid 5,850 Singapore dollars (US $3,461) for carrying the pregnancy to full term, with all her medical expenses covered.

The couple, in their mid-30s, had tried in-vitro fertilisation five times in Singapore without success.

Halimah Yacob, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Health, warned of several complications with surrogacy.

"It may sound easy just to get a surrogate mum and then implant fertilised eggs in her," she was quoted as saying. "But any woman who has carried a baby to full term will form strong emotional bonds with it."

A gynaecologist told the newspaper about a woman who wanted a child and had no medical problems, but refused to become pregnant.

The woman, a professional in her 30s, was seeking to rent a womb because she "wanted to enjoy life", he said.

- Hindustan Times, 15 Oct 2005.