India’s First Surrogate-Orphan

http://eunheui.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2008/08/post_5a05.htmlにて知る。
Times of Indiaの記事;


Conceived in Japan, abandoned in Jaipur
6 Aug 2008, 0135 hrs IST, Prakash Bhandari,TNN



JAIPUR: She's only 11 days old, and already her fate is tied in legal knots and international complications. Her biological parents are Japanese. When her mother, Yuki Yamada, could not conceive, she chose a surrogate mother in Ahmedabad to carry her child.

The child was born on July 25 in Anand, Gujarat. But a month before that, Yuki divorced her husband, Dr Ikufumi Yamada, and disowned the child. And that, it seems, is the root of all trouble for the infant who still does not have a name.

Her father is keen to take the girl back home to Tokyo, but a law enacted 120 years ago is in the way. First, as Dr Ikufumi is only the biological father of the child, the girl's legitimacy will have to be proved. Secondly, according to the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, a single father cannot adopt a girl child.

With so much loaded against her, the girl is now spending time at a hospital in Jaipur. She was shifted out of Ahmedabad after the blasts. A friend of Ikufumi, Kamal Vijayvargiya—a jeweller from Jaipur settled in Tokyo—was instrumental in getting the girl shifted to Arya Hospital in Jaipur. He also got Ikufumi's mother to come down and take care of the child. She's here on a three-month tourist visa.

"She (the grandmother) is very disturbed as the child cannot be taken out of the country because of adoption laws. The child's mother, Yuki, who divorced her husband and disowned the child, turned down her ex-husband's request to visit India to complete the adoption process. The grandmother becomes very emotional when she is told that the child cannot be taken out of India. The lawmakers will have to find some solution to this," said Dr Sanjay Arya, who is looking after the girl.

Ikufumi (45)—an orthopaedic surgeon attached to a Tokyo hospital—and his former wife Yuki (41) signed an agreement of surrogacy with Dr Nayanaben Patel of Akansha IVF Centre, an Ahmedabad hospital, on November 22 last year. Pritiben Mehta, wife of Brijeshbhai Mehta, also from Ahmedabad, signed an agreement to serve as the surrogate mother. The fertilization process of Yuki's eggs with Ikufumi's sperm was completed in Tokyo and the embryo was brought to Ahmedabad.

The embryo transfer was done at Dr Nayanaben's hospital on November 22 in the presence of the Japanese couple. After that, they left for Tokyo. The baby was delivered on July 25.

But by then, the Japanese couple had divorced. And after the birth, surrogate mother Pritiben 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.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Conceived_in_Japan_abandoned_in_Jaipur/rssarticleshow/3330790.cms

夫婦関係においても法制度においても、なかなか複雑な事情があるようだ。印度で「代理出産」が合法であり、さらに結婚していない男性は養子を取ることができないということを知る。日本では同性愛者が実質的に結婚するための手段としての養子縁組というのはけっこう昔から行われている(例えば、折口信夫*1の場合)。印度ではそれも駄目なのか。
さて、子どもの福祉ということだと、取り敢えず誰か夫婦が養子にして、印度の法律の拘束を離れたところで、「生物学的父」が引き取るということになるのか。