In a country obsessed with lineage, legacy, and the gentle tyranny of the question “Good news kab sunaoge?” (“When will you share the good news?”), infertility in India is no longer the hushed tragedy it once was—but it is still deeply fraught. As more Indian couples and single women turn to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and assisted reproductive technology (ART), medicine is racing ahead of culture, religion, law, and affordability, creating a complex landscape where science offers hope, but society still sets the terms.
India has quietly become one of the world’s largest hubs for infertility treatment. An estimated 10–15 percent of married couples experience infertility, a condition medically defined as the inability to conceive after one year of unprotected sex. IVF, once a luxury whispered about in elite urban clinics, is now offered in hundreds of cities and towns. ART procedures—including IVF, ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), gamete donation, and cryopreservation—are increasingly common, especially among urban middle-class Indians marrying later, dealing with lifestyle-related fertility decline, or facing environmental and health factors that affect reproductive health.
Yet infertility remains heavily gendered. Despite male-factor infertility accounting for a large share of cases, social blame still falls overwhelmingly on women. Terms like baanjhpan (infertility, often used pejoratively) continue to haunt women, particularly in joint-family settings where motherhood is seen as a woman’s primary dharma (duty). Many women undergo years of tests, hormonal injections, and invasive procedures before male partners even agree to a semen analysis. IVF clinics themselves report that women often arrive emotionally exhausted, having first tried home remedies, temple rituals, astrologers, and tantrik interventions—paths encouraged by families hoping for a “natural” or divinely sanctioned solution.
Religion in India plays an ambivalent role. Hinduism, with its strong emphasis on progeny (santaan), does not explicitly prohibit assisted reproduction, and many couples reconcile IVF with faith by framing doctors as instruments of bhagwan ki kripa (God’s grace). It is common to see couples visiting temples before embryo transfer or naming children after deities believed to have “helped.” At the same time, the idea of donor sperm or donor eggs can clash with beliefs about bloodline (vansh) and inheritance, leading many families to insist on “own-gamete only” cycles, even when medical odds are low. Among some Muslim communities, religious scholars have debated IVF extensively; while IVF using a married couple’s own gametes is generally considered permissible, third-party donation is often viewed as problematic, adding another layer of ethical and emotional negotiation.
The legal landscape has tightened in recent years. India’s Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act and accompanying rules, which came into force in the early 2020s, brought long-needed oversight to a previously under-regulated sector. Clinics and ART banks must now be registered, donor age limits are fixed, egg donation is sharply restricted, and sex selection—already illegal under earlier laws—is explicitly banned in ART procedures except for rare medical reasons. These reforms were designed to curb exploitation and unethical practices, but they have also reduced donor availability and increased costs, making IVF more regulated yet less accessible for many.
Cost remains the elephant in the room. A single IVF cycle in India can range from ₹1.5 to ₹3 lakh (roughly USD 1,800–3,600), often excluding medicines, repeated cycles, or complications. With limited insurance coverage and patchy public-sector provision, infertility treatment is largely paid out of pocket. Recent studies and media reports have warned that couples frequently incur debt, sell assets, or exhaust savings in pursuit of pregnancy, driven by social pressure and the powerful fear of a childless future. For lower-income families, IVF remains aspirational but out of reach.
Cultural acceptance, however, is undeniably shifting. Bollywood celebrities and public figures speaking openly about IVF and late motherhood have softened stigma. Younger couples are more willing to discuss fertility struggles openly, and the language around infertility is slowly becoming more medical and less moral. Social media has created communities where women share injection schedules, embryo grades, and heartbreak with striking candour, challenging the silence that once defined infertility.
Still, acceptance is conditional. IVF is embraced when it results in a baby, but the process—especially repeated failure—remains isolating. Women endure not just physical side effects, but intrusive questions, unsolicited advice, and casual cruelty masked as concern. Success is celebrated; struggle is endured quietly.
In India today, IVF and ART sit at a crossroads of science and samskar (social conditioning). They offer extraordinary possibilities in a society where motherhood is prized, yet they also expose how deeply reproduction is entangled with gender inequality, religious belief, and economic disparity. Infertility treatment may be becoming more common, but until compassion, affordability, and shared responsibility catch up, the journey to parenthood will remain far more unequal than the technology itself suggests.
Spicy Auntie here, adjusting my chili necklace and taking a long, judgmental sip of chai. Let’s talk about infertility in India—and no, not in hushed tones behind closed doors, not with a panditji on speed dial, and definitely not as if it’s a woman’s personal failure to please the gods, the ancestors, the in-laws, and the neighbourhood aunties all at once.
India loves babies. Worships them, really. But it has a disturbingly cruel relationship with women who can’t—or won’t—produce them on schedule. Infertility is treated like a shameful secret, yet everyone feels entitled to comment on it. “Relax and it will happen.” “Have you tried yoga?” “Maybe stop working so much.” My personal favourite: “It’s all in your mind.” Funny how it’s never “Have you checked your sperm count, beta?”
IVF and assisted reproductive technologies should have been liberating. And in some ways, they are. Science has opened doors that tradition slammed shut. But let’s not pretend IVF in India is some feminist utopia. It often just relocates patriarchy—from the living room to the clinic. Women are still poked, prodded, injected, blamed, and expected to endure quietly, while male egos remain as fragile as unfertilised eggs.
Religion adds another delicious layer of confusion. Doctors do the work, hormones do the heavy lifting, but success is promptly credited to bhagwan ki kripa (God’s grace). Failure? That’s on the woman, her karma, her stress levels, or her insufficient devotion. Donor eggs? Donor sperm? Suddenly everyone becomes a guardian of vansh (bloodline purity), as if family trees haven’t always been messier than WhatsApp forwards suggest.
And then there’s the money. IVF in India is expensive, emotionally and financially. Couples go into debt chasing a pregnancy because childlessness is treated as a social emergency. No child? No peace. No status. No silence from relatives who think reproduction is a public performance. The fact that infertility care isn’t properly covered by insurance tells you exactly how little women’s suffering is valued once it’s medical, not maternal.
Yes, things are changing. Women are speaking up. Younger couples are pushing back. Some are even daring to say: maybe we don’t want children, or not at any cost. Revolutionary, I know.
But until infertility stops being a woman’s bojh (burden) and becomes a shared human reality—medical, emotional, and social—IVF will remain a mixed blessing. Science can fertilise eggs. Only society can grow empathy. And honestly, India, it’s long overdue.