5 Surrogacy and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

1. The technology's challenge: IVF (the in-vitro conception — the married-and-clinical practice's legal silence) and surrogacy (the gestational arrangement — genetic-intended parents, the surrogate mother, the child's legal maternity's collision); 2. The Nepali legal position: - No statute yet — the legislative gap at the center; - The Supreme Court's ruling — Puspa Raj v. Government of Nepal (NKP 2074, Vol. 4, D.No. 9757): the PIL challenging the Government's authorization of surrogacy by Cabinet decision; the Court's holdings: (i) surrogacy may be permitted only by parliamentary law, not administrative decision; (ii) commercial surrogacy contrary to public policy-and-morality (the exploitation of poor women — motherhood not a business); (iii) any surrogacy regime must protect the surrogate mother, the child and the intended parents — the statute-first directive; the interim suspensions of surrogacy services in the interim; - The IVF practice's rules- gaps: the consent-and-records requirements; the donor-anonymity-and-lineage questions; the embryo's-and-the stored gametes' disputes; the children's right-to-identity (Article 39) vs. the donor anonymity; 3. The comparative-and-exam line: the altruistic-vs-commercial distinction (India's 2021 statute; the global prohibitions' wave); the children-protected-principle (the legal parentage of the surrogacy-child — the status protection whatever the contract's fate).