‘ADOPTION’ AND ‘SURROGACY’ AS TWO ALTERNATIVES FOR NATURAL PARENTING ? THEIR LEGAL DYNAMICS AND SOCIAL PREFERENCE ? A COMPARATIVE STUDY

‘Parenting’ is universally accepted as a process of bringing up a child, from day one of conception, to the fullest growth in a holistic manner involving a bond of parent and child which is a mixture of love and responsibilities acknowledged and conditioned by Law giving raise to legal implications. Natural parenting refers to natural way of conception through natural biological process. But when begetting a child in natural course does not occur, due to involuntary or voluntary reasons, ‘Adoption’ and ‘Surrogacy’ come to the aid of childless couple or single parent as two alternate avenues of parenting. While ‘Adoption’ involves transplantation of a child from its genetic family to adoptive family, with all rights, privileges and responsibilities attached to the new relationship, ‘Surrogacy’ involves implantation of gametes or transfer of embryo into the womb of the surrogate mother who bears the child to term and delivers the custody to the commissioning parents, creating a legal relationship between the surrogate mother, the commissioning parents and the child. ‘Adoption’ is a long cherished institution existing in the society and ‘Surrogacy’ is a modern innovation of science and technology. These two avenues of alternate parenting have much socio-legal relevance and are intertwined with the life of many people. In the light of above relativity, the present paper throws light on the efficacy of law of adoption and the law of surrogacy with the social preferences of people for any one of the avenues of alternate parenting or both in exceptional cases.