Surrogacy

Mednovosti published this online interview on the rights of advertising, but competent answers to the questions of interest to many of our readers can be reprinted for free. Moreover, there are advertisements here with Gulkin's nose: a link to the website of the defendant's place of work :)
The author's spelling in the questions is left untouched – VM.

What is the legal status of surrogacy in Russia?
How are the rights of biological and adoptive parents protected?
Who can demand money for what and how much does it cost?
How to use the services of a surrogate mother for married couples who do not want or cannot register their marriage?
What are the requirements of the guardianship authorities now?
Finally, what are the alternatives in this situation?

Lawyer Sergey Vladimirovich Lebedev, president of the Sweetchild Group of Companies, member of the Ethics and Law Committee of the Russian Association of Human Reproduction and the European Society of Reproductive Medicine and Embryology, answered these and other questions from readers of Mednovosti.

Anonymous
Sergey Vladimirovich, hello! Why is surrogacy prohibited in many developed European countries (France, Germany)? Is it related to crime or ethical norms?

There is nothing criminal in the field of surrogacy. Forms of restrictions in the field of assisted reproductive technologies exist in almost all countries. This is due to both ethical norms and social standards. And in countries where the influence of the Catholic Church has historically been very strong, these restrictions are most pronounced. However, in these countries, in general, the influence of the church on public life in all its manifestations is traditionally strong. Other branches of Christian teaching, including Orthodoxy, as well as other religions, treat the institution of surrogacy more calmly. By the way, it is worth noting that the ban on carrying children by surrogate mothers is not the most extraordinary; for example, in some countries, work with frozen gametes and embryos is prohibited or severely limited.

There is nothing surprising in the cautious attitude of religion to the use of modern medical technologies, as well as other new technologies from other fields of knowledge. The Church is the guardian of the foundations of morality and ethics and in this capacity has always been distinguished by a healthy conservatism in relation to new knowledge and technologies, all the more capable of changing the foundations of society. It takes time for new medical technologies to prove in practice their ability to enter public life without destroying it, so that they become a tradition – then the attitude of religion to this issue will change. In general, there is nothing so unusual in surrogate motherhood for religion – if we recall the Old Testament (Genesis, 16), then Sarah, Abraham's wife, was infertile and hired her maid Hagar to carry the child conceived by Abraham, who was later named Ismail and was adopted in the family of Abraham and Sarah as her own This was the first documented case of surrogacy on Earth.

Natalya
How much do surrogate mother services cost in Russia?

Obviously, you mean the amount of compensation received by a surrogate mother after the birth of a child? I am sure that there are no "tariffs" on the volume and procedure of this compensation. This is the subject of an agreement between two parties: the surrogate mother and those people who turned to her help. The spread of figures is so wide that I will not risk giving them here so as not to disorient you. It happens that surrogate mothers do their job as a gestational nanny (so surrogate mothers are called correctly in medicine) for free – for example, if they are carrying a child for their relatives.

If you wanted to ask: how much does the whole surrogacy program cost, then its cost consists of a number of costs. The amount of compensation for the surrogate mother, of course, is a significant item of expenditure in the total cost, but, in addition, future parents bear the costs of medical support for the entire program, provide the surrogate mother with medicines, full nutrition, sometimes housing (if the surrogate is from another region), etc.

Anna
Good afternoon! Please tell me, does a surrogate mother have to be a citizen of the Russian Federation?

No, I don't have to. It is quite common for citizens of former Soviet republics to participate in surrogacy programs on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Lada
How many times can a woman be a surrogate mother? Are there any restrictions?
Zamira
are there any legal restrictions on the number of children that one surrogate mother can give birth to?

There are no restrictions on the number, only the age, the presence of your own healthy child and the state of health. In our company there are surrogate mothers who have given birth 3 or more times.

A woman can give birth as much as her health allows. Surrogate mothers undergo the most serious selection, there are strict age restrictions (a surrogate mother cannot be older than 35 years old), they must have at least 1 healthy child of their own, are subjected to very strict medical testing.

Tatyana
Dear Sergey Vladimirovich! What specific regulatory legal acts currently regulate surrogate motherhood in Russia? How should the legal procedure for registering a child born by a surrogate mother in the name of future parents take place

Dear Tatiana, surrogacy in Russia is regulated by the Family Code of the Russian Federation, Federal Law 143-FZ "On Acts of Civil Status", the Fundamentals of the Legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of public health protection and the Order of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation No. 67.

The procedure for registering a child born by a surrogate mother is defined by Article 16 of the above-mentioned FZ-143:

5. At the state registration of the birth of a child, at the request of the spouses who have consented to the implantation of an embryo to another woman for the purpose of carrying it, simultaneously with the document confirming the fact of the birth of the child, a document issued by a medical organization must be submitted and confirming the fact of obtaining the consent of the woman who gave birth to the child (surrogate mother) to record the specified spouses by the parents of the child.

If you translate this from legal language into human, then the surrogate mother signs a consent to record you as the parents of the child (children), and the registry Office registers the birth on the surnames of the genetic parents.

If a single woman (or an unmarried woman) used the services of a surrogate mother, then the procedure for registering a child (children) is different. In this case, you will definitely need to contact lawyers specializing in surrogacy, such as, for example, our company.

Sergei
Can a person officially not being married use the services of surrogacy? Who in this case will be considered the mother of the child?

Unmarried persons can resort to a surrogacy program, but after the birth of a child (children) there will be a special procedure for obtaining a birth certificate. This procedure can be determined only within the framework of a face-to-face consultation; if you decide to use the services of our company, we will be happy to help.

Ekaterina
Recently, a situation was widely discussed on the Internet when both a surrogate mother and a foster mother refused a sick child. As a result, the child was not needed by anyone. Do you think it is possible to exclude such situations with the help of legislation? What responsibility do potential parents bear to a surrogate mother? A future child?

I remember this case, especially since it was really widely covered in the media.

Let's think about the question: would the case of a mother's rejection of a sick child have been covered as widely if it had been conceived and carried out in the traditional way? Probably not. This is a very difficult problem from the point of view of ethics and psychology. For example, I have great respect for mothers who, in such situations, decide to take this child away, realizing that, figuratively speaking, they will have to bear this cross all their lives. But I will not take the responsibility to condemn those women who, in this situation, decide to leave the newborn in the maternity hospital. God forbid anyone to make such a choice, and one can only sympathize with those people who have to make it.

Why am I talking about this in such detail? The fact is that if parents who have passed the surrogacy program differ in some way from others, it is that it is very difficult for them to get children. And in legal, moral and other terms, they have the same rights and obligations as any citizen of Russia. Therefore, in my opinion, it is necessary to discuss the general negative situation with children who refuse. Cases of abandonment of long–awaited children associated with the surrogacy program are extremely rare, it happens thousands, tens of thousands of times less often than rejections of children born in the traditional way. About tens of thousands of times – this is not an exaggeration: I have been working in the field of assisted reproductive technologies for more than 10 years, and during this time I have known TWO cases when parents refused a child born to a surrogate mother, and both of these cases were associated with the most serious pathological diseases of children; at the same time, refusenik children born traditionally, there are up to 100 thousand annually! But for some reason, it is the cases with children born by a surrogate mother that have a great public resonance; this is obviously due to the "exciting" attitude of society to the technology of surrogacy itself.

Irina
Good afternoon, a few days ago, two newborn girls were shown on all channels in the news, whom foreigners tried to illegally take out of Ukraine to Europe. The surrogate mother gave birth to the girls for them, but there were difficulties with paperwork. As a result, the children were taken away, and they will now live in an orphanage. What kind of laws are these? Why can't the laws be simplified? In the same story, they showed an American woman who has not been given a child for 3 years, which was carried out for her in Ukraine again by a surrogate mother. The child disappears in the orphanage, but everything is according to the law!!!

I know about the cases described by you from the media, so I cannot evaluate or comment on these situations, because, alas, the media often offer at least a biased and insufficiently informative, or even just a biased "picture". The only thing that can be said is that the law of any country must be observed. If someone has difficulties with the law, then this is not a problem of the law, but of its non-fulfillment. Compliance with the legislation regarding surrogacy is even more mandatory; the issue is extremely acute, since we are talking about children. And it is necessary to find out what obstacles lie in the way of your desire to have a child, what are the features of national legislation in this matter in a particular country, before you entered the program, and not after the birth of this very child. I think that in this situation, the mentioned foreign parents acted extremely irresponsibly by not doing this. Before deciding on such a step, they had to turn to good specialists.

Ivan AS
The transaction may be declared void several years after the fulfillment of all the conditions by the parties? Can a surrogate mother take possession of a child in any way?

Within the framework of the current legislation, while observing all the documentary formalities in the process of implementing the surrogacy program, it will be very difficult to do this, I would even say impossible. In the existing Russian legislation, this situation is regulated by article 52, paragraph 4 of the Family Code:

"Spouses who have consented to the implantation of an embryo to another woman, as well as a surrogate mother (part two of paragraph 4 of Article 51 of this Code) are not entitled to refer to these circumstances when challenging maternity and paternity after the parents have made an entry in the birth register."

Hope
What is the procedure for registering a child? How is the child's birth certificate compiled and when is it transferred to its potential parents?

Registration of the child is carried out in the registry Office. In the birth certificate, the parents record the genetic mom and dad, there is no mention of a surrogate mom in the birth certificate, nor is the adoption procedure required.

Legally, a surrogate mother loses all rights to a child after registering the fact of birth in the registry office; if we talk about large regional centers, then, as a rule, this happens even before the discharge of the child (children) from the maternity hospital. However, here, as in many other aspects of interaction between parents and a surrogate mother, this is a matter of personal arrangements; I am familiar with cases when the expectant mother was present at the birth of a surrogate mother by agreement, and the child was transferred immediately after birth.

Alexander
What are the approximate prices for getting a child in this way in our country? Well, how legitimate will the possible refusals of the mother to give the child according to the Russian legislation be? And if the customers are gay or one person, are orders possible in this case?

All these questions have already been discussed earlier, so I will allow myself to answer briefly.

QUESTION PRICE: there are no established prices, everything depends on the specific agreements between the genetic parents and the surrogate mother.

REFUSALS OF THE MOTHER: surrogate mothers have a legal opportunity to leave the child, there have been no such cases in our practice, since we competently arrange legal support, and the surrogate mother in this case is responsible to us.

NON-TRADITIONAL ORIENTATION: from the point of view of legislation, a single person of non-traditional orientation is no different from a single person of traditional orientation who wants to have a child, and must go through exactly the same "legal path". If your case has any additional features, I will be glad to help you as part of a face-to–face consultation.

Dima
The situation is like this. If a man in one person wants to have a child. According to the law, on what grounds can he do this with the help of a surrogate mother.

The issue of the procedure for the participation of a single man or woman in the surrogacy program has already been dealt with earlier, if we talk about legal grounds – on the basis of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which guarantees equal rights to its citizens.

Denis
Also, like Dima, he is interested in the question of whether a man who is not married can formalize a surrogacy agreement, and after the birth of a child become a parent in the singular. How is the birth certificate issued – in the column "mother" the name of the woman in labor is indicated or a dash is put? Thank you in advance

As you probably already understood from the previous answers, this is quite possible. If we talk about the paperwork, there have already been several precedents in the Russian Federation when an unmarried man turned to the surrogacy program; in this case, a dash was put in the "mother" column in the birth certificate.

young
what compensations are provided to the surrogate mother in case of harm to health due to pregnancy complications, as well as the death of the child before and during childbirth?

This is not provided for by law in any way, we can only talk about agreements between the parties when concluding a contract. If we talk about the practice of our company, then everything is said and prescribed to the smallest detail.

nyk83
and if an unhealthy child is born to a surrogate mother (for example, with a heart defect) and the biological parents refuse it, will they have to pay the fee to the woman in labor? after all, she honestly bore their child and gave birth, and genetic flaws do not depend on her?

If you are talking about what I think on this issue, YES, you should, and our package of legal documents provides for this case. Legislatively, this issue is not regulated in any way, so if you decide to join the program on your own, then you need to discuss this point and document it.

vladimir gopeenko
Sergey Vladimirovich! hello! please tell me how this direction will be developed in the near future with the support of the state or is it the prerogative of exclusively private medicine?

The only country that financially supports surrogacy programs (with multiple reservations) is Israel. In other countries where surrogacy is legally permitted, all the costs of implementing this program fall on the shoulders of future parents. Currently, the situation is the same in the Russian Federation; I believe that at least in the next few years we should not expect changes in this regard.

Nina
Good afternoon! Sergey Vladimirovich, I have such a question: why can a single woman undergo IVF and then raise a child alone, but in order to use the services of a surrogate mother, she must necessarily be married? Is there any way to get around this moment and still become a happy mother? Thank you in advance for the answer, Nina, 38 years old.

Of course, our legislation regarding assisted reproductive technologies in general and surrogacy in particular is imperfect, I say this as a member of the State Duma committee on the development of legislation in the field of reproductive technologies :-). But even within the existing legal framework, a single woman can use the services of a surrogate mother, it's just that this path is somewhat more complicated than for people who are married. Contact us, we will help you become a happy mother.

Vit
At what point is the child taken from the surrogate mother? And how does this affect the health and mental development of the child? Are there any studies of such children?

On the issue of the moment of the transfer of the child – in short, this usually happens after the surrogate mother signs off her rights to the child, the parents' entry in the birth certificate and the completion of financial calculations, but again this is a matter of personal arrangements. I spoke in more detail about this procedure in my answer to Nadezhda. On the issue of child health, there are no deviations from the norm in the health or psychological development of children born to surrogate mothers; similar studies have been conducted by many international organizations, for example, I can immediately recall the study of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. In my practice, I can say that these children are happy, healthy and, importantly, deeply desired: they are literally suffered by their parents, and parents surround them with love, care and attention.

Misha
Good afternoon. How will the adoption of the new law on cellular technologies affect your business

According to the draft law "On Biomedical and cellular technologies", its effect will not apply to assisted reproductive technologies.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru06.04.2011