Sheela Suryanarayanan

Sheela Suryanarayanan (Saravanan) is presently an Associate Professor at the Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad. Her specialization in maternal health, traditional birth attendants, and assisted reproductive technologies draw upon her extensive fieldwork in India since 1998. Her research focus includes; birthing practices, TBA training, prenatal screening, selective abortions, and surrogacy.
Rajya Sabha Surrogacy Committee invited her, the Government of India, to provide her inputs on the Draft Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill 2019, and her suggestions have been included in the Bill. She delivered a keynote speech on surrogacy at the United Nations, Geneva, and has been invited in several forums as a specialist in Europe and also in ‘We the People’ NDTV, India. She has authored a book on commercial surrogacy in India titled ‘A Transnational Feminist View of Surrogacy Biomarkets in India’. She has applied the concepts of Authoritative Knowledge, Agency, Intersectionality, Transnational Feminism, Reproductive Justice, and Global Justice to her empirical research using both positivist and qualitative feminist methodologies.

Sheela Suryanarayanan will participate in the roundtable on surrogacy in India on Thursday, March 3, 2022.