War or no war, Ukrainian surrogacy is open for business
by Michael Cook, MercatorNet:
“Vultures” are flying in to take advantage of women’s misery.
Despite their country’s vicious war with Russia, surrogacy agencies in Ukraine are still accepting clients. An article in Toronto’s Globe and Mail paints a picture of near-normality for the agencies. In fact, the burden of government paperwork has been reduced. Before the war, couples might have to spend a couple of months in Ukraine; now they can pick up their baby and leave within a few days.
As conditions in Ukraine worsen, it seems that more women are willing to be surrogates – just to survive. More than 30 percent of the employable population lack jobs – and women are often the first to be fired. “I need to raise my children, I need to feed them and the war is taking money not giving,” one woman told the Globe and Mail.
BioTexCom is the largest surrogacy company in Ukraine; various publications estimate that it handles two-thirds of the foreign couples seeking a child. In a video on its website its owner, Albert Tochilovsky, says that they are open for business.
Ukrainian fertility clinics tell journalists that they are focused on saving the frozen embryos. “Russian troops have killed not only our soldiers and civilians, they have killed future babies as embryos,” says Dr Valery Zukin, of the Nadiya Clinic in Kyiv. “We’re trying to save not only our soldiers and our citizens—we are trying to save future citizens and future babies.” In eastern Ukraine, there are reports that fertility clinics and their frozen embryos, eggs and sperm have been destroyed. Dr Zukin told Women’s Health magazine that his clinic is caring for 19,000 frozen embryos. Some clinics have run out of the liquid nitrogen which preserves the embryos.
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