A new government regulation has left 28-year-old Sunita Devi worried about the future of the baby she is carrying. Devi, who is already showing at five months, is a surrogate mother carrying the child of a single Canadian man. Wearing a yellow shalwar suit and a long, well-oiled braid, Devi is visibly upset as she talks about a memo that India’s Home Ministry circulated late last year to Indian missions abroad, stipulating that gay couples, single men and women, nonmarried couples and couples from countries where surrogacy is illegal be prohibited from hiring a commercial surrogate in India. As of an unspecified date, foreigners who want to hire a surrogate must be a “man and woman,” the new rule says, “[who] are duly married and the marriage should be sustained at least two years.” Now Devi is worried that the child she is carrying may not be able to be handed over to its Canadian father. “I will be carrying this baby for nine months,” she says. “But what if after I give birth, it doesn’t get a home?”
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