Couples desperate for kids taking advantage of relaxed Indian surrogacy laws

London, Dec. 23 (ANI): Couples in the West, who are desperate to have children, are reportedly turning to India where surrogacy laws are more relaxed to fulfill their objectives.

According to Sky News, a womb in India can be rented for a few thousand pounds and IVF treatment is a fraction of what it costs in the West.

It quotes Dr. Anil Gupta as saying: "My criteria is very strict. The surrogate must be healthy and she must already have a family with at least one or two children of her own, minimum. She must not be doing this primarily for financial reasons but because she wants to help another family."

Dr Gupta says he gets about fifteen international patients every month seeking a surrogate.

Dr Gupta defends surrogacy.

Most of the time he uses eggs and sperm harvested from the couple and then implants the embryo into the Indian surrogate. The couple then pay all the surrogate's medical expenses plus lump sums in stages.

By the time a baby is born the woman who has effectively rented out her womb stands to make around 3.5 lakh Indian rupees or around 4,600 pounds at today's exchange rates.

Bobby and Nikki Baines from Ilford in east London spent nearly a decade and 70,000 pounds on IVT trying to conceive before finally advertised in an Indian paper and finding an Indian woman who was prepared to carry their child.

Now they have a baby daughter whom they have called Daisy.

Dr Gupta believes India's so-called baby factories have got an unfairly poor reputation: "Everyone gets something out of this," he says matter-of-factly. (ANI)