LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN ARTIFICIAL REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Artificial Reproductive Technologies (ART) like IVF and surrogacy have really changed the way people in India face infertility. Although in 2025, India handles over 200,000 IVF cycles each year. The paper examines into those challenges through the lens of ethics, real court cases, and the latest laws. In keeping with this, The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021, and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, established laws for hospitals, make registration mandatory, and ban commercial surrogacy. Still, ethical problems haven’t gone away. There’s constant debate should embryos be used in research or just discarded. Is consent truly informed in egg donation or surrogacy, or are poor women getting the worst of it? Unofficial sex selection persists, even though the 1994 PCPNDT Act bans it, and this pushes a troubling “better babies” mindset. Indian surrogacy laws draw a hard-line single people, LGBTQ+ peoples, and foreigners get shut out. That’s sparked lawsuits from people fighting for the right to build families on their own terms. Cases like Baby Manji Yamada (2008) and Jan Balaz (2010) dragged issues like citizenship and parental rights into the spotlight, while recent 2025 court rulings on age limits show the legal landscape isn’t standing still. This article deals with where the laws fall short and pushes for reforms fairer access, tighter oversight, and strong ethics that actually line up with the rights promised in Articles 14, 15, and 21 of India’s Constitution. If India wants a just future for families, it needs to strike the right balance between cutting-edge tech and real fairness. Keywords: Informed Consent, Embryo Ownership, Surrogacy Laws, Genetic Privacy, Parental Rights, Bioethics.