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Kerala couple’s next battle: Finding a surrogate
A poor couple in Kerala who won a legal battle to get their dead son’s semen is struggling to find a womb to bear them a grandchild.
A poor couple in Kerala who won a legal battle to get their dead son’s semen is struggling to find a womb to bear them a grandchild.
Ravikumar, 59, a daily-wage worker, and his wife Karthiyani, 56, a part-time sweeper, do not have the money to pay for a surrogate mother.
“We were told the cost involved would be around Rs. 15-20 lakh. It is our dream to bring up our son’s offspring. We would like to live the rest of our lives for this child and overcome the pain of our son’s death,” said Ravikumar.
Some relatives had offered to bear their grandchild, but later backtracked.
For the last seven months, the couple in central Kerala’s Thrissur district is praying for some help.
Ravikumar and Karthiyani got possession of the semen of their dead son, Ratheesh, in January after orders from the lok adalat in Kochi to a private hospital in the city.
The couple had moved the court after the hospital refused to part with their son’s semen, citing technical and ethical reasons. Though the hospital lost the case, it agreed to preserve the semen.
Ratheesh, 27, who was pursuing a course in sound engineering in Chennai, had a malignant tumor in his testicles. He was not married and doctors had advised his parents to preserve his semen.
Ratheesh died in January last year after contracting pneumonia following a chemotherapy course.
A few months ago, filmmaker Sanjeev Sivan had announced a movie on Ravikumar and Karthiyani’s plight and said he would use the box office returns to help them realise their dream.
