ANAND, Gujarat: Surrogate mothers in various stages of pregnancy resting in a dormitory above a clinic in Anand in western Gujarat state. Leading Indian fertility doctors and surrogate mothers yesterday criticized a move to ban commercial surrogacy. —AFP

AHMEDABAD: Leading Indian fertility doctors and surrogate mothers yesterday criticized a move to ban commercial surrogacy, saying it will severely limit options for childless couples and women who carry others’ babies as a way out of poverty.

India’s cabinet on Wednesday cleared a bill to restrict surrogacy services to Indian married couples, following concerns over the “rent-a-womb” industry exploiting impoverished young women.

The bill seeks to bar foreign, single and homosexual would-be parents from surrogacy services in India and states that only women who are close relatives of a beneficiary can act as surrogates. Gita Makwana, 33, who became a surrogate mother in 2010 after having one child of her own, said the bill would remove avenues for women like her to escape poverty.

“When I became a surrogate I got three lakh rupees ($4,475) as compensation,” Makwana from Anand in Gujarat state, a centre for India’s surrogacy sector, told AFP. “I used it to repair my house and educate my child. — AFP