Maternity ward converted from an air raid shelter (screenshot of the report)
According to the New York Post reported on the 9th, although many Ukrainians have chosen to leave the country to escape the war, those Ukrainian "surrogate mothers" who are pregnant with children of wealthy Western people must stay at home or return to the countries where they suffered from war before they can give birth. Due to the complex surrogacy laws, a surrogate woman admitted to a clinic in Kiev had to give birth in a maternity ward converted from an air raid shelter.
Dennis Herman, legal adviser at the BioTexCom clinic in Kiev, said several surrogate women at the clinic had fled as the fighting around Kiev worsened, but they had been scheduled to return to the clinic's delivery room closer to their due date. Herman advises these "surrogate mothers" not to give birth to children in neighboring countries because surrogacy is prohibited by law in many places adjacent to Ukraine.
The tragic conundrum underscores the controversy in the commercial surrogacy industry: The Westerners' search for legal and inexpensive surrogacy services in Ukraine has been accused by critics of being "uterus rental tourism" and classified as human trafficking, accusing it of exploiting women.
Screenshot of the report
If these Ukrainian women do give birth abroad, Hermann explains, "there will be a lot of problems with paperwork and the establishment of parent-child relationships, because under the laws of some countries, the legal mother of a child is the woman who gave birth to the child, regardless of her kinship." ”
So the surrogacy clinic in Kiev turned an air raid shelter into a makeshift delivery room, providing a relatively safe place for "surrogate mothers" to stay during the war, rather than choose to flee. Herman argues that keeping surrogate women in Ukraine not only removes legal barriers, but also keeps them safe.
On the other hand, these "surrogate mothers" are worried that because of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, parents abroad will not be able to pick up the children they have given birth on their behalf. Herman said: "Of course they are very worried, one of the worries is when the child's parents will be able to come and pick up the child after the child is born. We are in constant contact with all surrogates. If needed, we will help them relocate. ”
Foreign parents receive surrogate babies (screenshot of the report)
At the clinic, a surrogate baby born in a makeshift bomb shelter has been adopted by his biological parents, who fled Ukraine in the middle of the night in heavy snow. Another pair of parents from Ireland arrived in Kiev on March 3 to meet the "surrogate mother" who had been arranged for them.
(Editor: WDQ)