Legal Dilemmas in Surrogacy: Balancing the Rights of Surrogates, Intended Parents and the Medical Professionals through ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Mechanisms

As a complicated reproductive arrangement, surrogacy has special ethical and legal difficulties, especially when it comes to striking a balance between the intended parents' parental rights and the surrogate mother's reproductive autonomy. The legal tensions arise when disagreements over child custody, the enforceability of surrogacy agreements, and the autonomy of the surrogate mother particularly when her consent may be withdrawn or changed during pregnancy, are critically examined in this research study. The rights and responsibilities of each party, surrogate mother, intending parents, and medical professionals remain understudied in the Indian legal setting, where the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, has just recently gone into effect. The study also looks into the growing involvement of medical professionals in these types of conflicts, where they may be called upon to defend surrogacy agreements or to fight for ethical transgressions or confidentiality violations. These three-way conflicts show how urgently we need systems that can handle the complicated legal, emotional, and medical issues at play. In light of this, the study suggests using Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedures including mediation, negotiation, conciliation and arbitration in this order to settle disputes pertaining to surrogacy. These provides a quicker, less confrontational, and more private settlement process, which may be especially helpful in delicate cases like surrogacy. This research aims to provide a balanced strategy that protects the legitimate expectations of intended parents while respecting the surrogate's physical autonomy by examining case studies, legal frameworks, and ethical issues. The paper will focus on mediation as a primary tool solve disputes between the tripartite relation. In conclusion, it promotes a right based yet unified legal system that can use mediation to settle surrogacy conflicts quickly and humanely. Keywords: Reproductive Autonomy, Medical Termination, Surrogates, Intended Parents, Mediation, Alternative Dispute Resolution.