Ukraine’s surrogate babies born into a nightmare
by Janice Davis, TCW:
[…] With the outbreak of war, the vulnerabilities of this business in Ukraine have been exposed. The Swiss press has documented stories about parents managing to flee the country with their new-born on the last convoy out of the Swiss Embassy, but others have not been so fortunate. Many newborns remain uncollected, and BioTexCom, the largest surrogacy agency in Ukraine, reports that it has transferred its facilities to underground bunkers, where nurses care for babies while the fighting and bombing rage overhead. Many babies have been taken, unprotected, to the border, where the intended parents wait to receive them. Many remain uncollected, raising serious doubts about their safety and longer-term future. For some, the Russian invasion has forced Ukrainian surrogate mothers to choose between fleeing the country and staying in a war zone. But if they give birth outside the country, there is the risk that their babies will not be legally recognised as the children of their ‘clients’.
Equally problematic must be the position of babies born to Russian surrogate mothers and destined for families in countries where anything Russian is being shunned. Imagine the consequences for a Russian woman who enters into a surrogacy arrangement with a foreign couple, who then back out of the deal. Not only will the child be lost to the aspiring parents, but the otherwise impoverished gestational mother may be left with a child she did not intend to keep. Even worse, the babies may be abandoned to the agency involved.
Whatever your views on the ethics and management of surrogacy procedures, this is a fate the little ones have done nothing to deserve.
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