A commenter to our blog made an important point:

The law will still allow single people to contract Indian surrogates. Hence, for gay men at least, even those in relationships, they will still be able to seek out these services so long as they are discrete and do not disclose their sexual orientation or their relationship status if they are coupled. As we all know, at the Federal level, all gays, even those in states where they can go through a domestic partnership or civil marriage, are technically categorized as single.

The commenter is correct insofar as the bill is currently worded. An earlier draft of the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) Regulation Bill of 2010 was ambiguous as to the definition of the term “couple”. Under the current incarnation, the bill now specifically allows“unmarried couples” and “single persons” to avail themselves of an Indian surrogate.

There still remains obstacles. As the commenter pointed out, same-sex couples would have to withhold disclosing their sexual orientation. More problematic is that they would not be able to proceed as a couple, but only as individuals. As a consequence, they would not be able to receive a birth certificate identifying both of them as parents as they would in the United States. The bill can still be revised and we will continue to follow the development of this legislation.