She's only a month old, and already her fate is tied in legal knots and international complications. Her biological parents are Japanese and birth mother (surrogated) is Indian. The child was born on July 2008 in Gujarat amidst the fear of bomb blasts. But a month before that, mother of the baby divorced her husband and disowned the child. Her father is keen to take the girl back home to Tokyo, but a law enacted 120 years ago is in the way which states a single father cannot adopt a girl child. Grandmother came to the rescue but she can’t take the baby out of the country because of adoption law.
Story goes like this - A Japanese couple desperate for child signed an agreement of surrogacy with well known gynecologist in Ahmedabad in November 2007. A woman from Ahmedabad signed an agreement to serve as the surrogate mother. The fertilization process of wife’s eggs with husband's sperm was completed in Tokyo and the embryo was brought to Ahmedabad. The embryo transfer was done in an Ahmedabad hospital in the presence of the Japanese couple. After birth, the surrogate mother stuck to the terms of the contract and left the baby and went home.
If the baby, whose nationality is Indian, doesn't get an Indian passport after the adoption process is completed, she may become the country's first surrogate-orphan, in other words an unwanted expensive child.
Look at that innocent face of the baby. Is she aware of the fact that science has created a complex world for her? What is her identity? Indian? Japanese? Who is her mother? The woman whose egg was used to give her life or the woman who nurtured her in her womb for 9 months?
Law stepped in to resolve the complexity but it worsened the situation as law does not allow a single father to adopt a girl child.Her granny came forward to take care of her but for how long can she stay in India to be with the baby? Who is responsible for this situation? A couple who desired to have a child and then deserted her? A surrogated mother who rented her womb for money? Or a doctor who wanted to show her talent and become famous? Or is it advanced science? Or is it a law which allowed (an unlawful) practice in the first place? What is the root cause of this complexity?
God created a beautiful phenomenon called birth. Are humans using it or abusing it? I firmly believed that there was a reason behind me why I was born as a female. God had certain plans for me and He left it on me to realize them. God has such reasons for having each one of you on earth as what you are. Why do you have to defy His creation? What do you want to show the world?
Beatie grew up in Hawaii as a girl but later legally changed to a male identity, took hormone shots and had his (her?) breasts surgically removed. Science helped Beatie to become a man, Thomas Beatie, but it could not change the very essence of Beatie’s being a woman. His wife Nancy was unable to bear children. Beatie became pregnant using donated sperm and artificial insemination. Nancy inseminated him with a syringe using sperm purchased from a bank and he became pregnant and gave birth to a girl in June 2008. Law again played a part of God, allowing Beatie who was a a man to become a woman.
When Nikita and Harsh Mehta’s 24-week fetus was diagnosed with a congenital heart problem they immediately rushed to court to seek permission to abort the pregnancy. The court dismissed the petition on the grounds that law does not permit abortion for fetus older than 20 weeks.
Mr. Law, I hope you are aware that fetus doesn’t have to wait for 20 weeks to get a life; there is a life in fetus from as early as four weeks. Then how can you dictate what is right for that life? Are you playing a part of God? Or you think you are a messenger of God?
I wish Nikita and Harsh would have believed in God and time. God knows what is best for his kids. Two weeks after the verdict, Nikita went through a painful ‘NATURAL’ miscarriage. God knew that it was not in the best interest of the unborn child.
Law and Science are to help us and not to destroy us. We must remember that nobody can replace God. He is the ultimate power.
Science may create perfect human being but can it induce emotions? Bernann McKinney lost her buddy Booger, a Pit Bull Terrier. She paid $50,000 to get him back. Five clones were born from two surrogate mothers in July 2008 using the dog’s refrigerated ear tissue. Bernann is happy to have her beloved Booger look-alike but she would soon realize that it is not the same pug she loved and missed.
I believe in God and think that there are certain decisions best left to him. Don’t you think human being is intruding the territory of the God? Science, research, discovery, innovation, and technology are to ease human being’s life and not to make it complicated. So is the Law.
What's your take?
