But in the newspaper there isn't a single word that the surrogate maternity is the last chance for infertile couples to have a child of their own (!), and that in Ukraine there is a charity foundation which helps families with small income to take advantage of a surrogate mother's aid.

Attitude of a lot of people to the Surrogate Mother Program is not entirely correct. Some people are sure that this is illegal, and human reproduction clinics are clandestine and accomplish such operations secretly. Let us say at once: Surrogate Maternity based on the extracorporeal fertilization (AVF) program is regulated in our country by Article 123 of the Family Code of Ukraine (the registration procedure of a child, born by a surrogate mother is stipulated in item 2.2). Any physically and psychically healthy woman of 20-35, having her own healthy child and having no contra-indications for pregnancy may be a surrogate mother

Surrogate maternity and selling a child are different things!

«...Although there no official data in Ukraine, it is supposed that reproduction clinics act as mediators for 100 surrogate mothers every year. There is at least the same number in the shadow market...»— writes the German newspaper.

First of all a human reproduction clinic does not act as a mediator. Really sometimes women apply to them with the request to find a married couple for them for the Surrogate mother program, as well as infertile couples —with the request to find a surrogate mother for them. That is why many Ukrainian human reproduction centers have lists and addresses of women willing to bear a child for other people for a reward. But quite often a couple and a mother find each other it and only after that the three of them come to the reproduction clinic for medical assistance. Doctors do not settle juridical and financial aspects.

Secondly, a shadow market cannot exist by definition! Surrogate maternity supposes that a man and a woman, who are going to bring up their future child, will be also genetic parents. That is, in this case physicians of the clinic carry out a standard procedure of extracorporeal fertilization. It is often called by public "conception in vitro"

To this end an enormous number of requirements are to be met, starting from expensive equipment ( worth about several tens of thousands of Euros), high class experts, special laboratories, which can be afforded by only a specialized centre of human reproduction, of which there are only 19 in Ukraine,. Here there is a need to explain when a mother is called surrogate.

The AVF procedure usually comes to help couples who cannot conceive a child themselves. First stimulating tablets and injections are prescribed to a patient that help to lay and grow, as a rule, several eggs in the ovaries. The procedure of fertilizing a woman's egg with husband's spermatozoon’s takes place beyond her body, after this an embryo grown in an incubator is transferred into the potential mother's organism and continues its development under natural conditions.

The AVF program refers to accessory reproductive technologies and is employed only in less than 1% cases of treating infertility. This is an extreme case, when a woman cannot, due to some reasons, bear a child herself, or pregnancy is contra-indicated for her by the state of her health or due to some reasons her womb was ablated.

A surrogate mother does not have blood kinship in full meaning of this notion with the child. If a woman cannot provide the genetic material, then the clinic will use a donor's egg (but not that of a woman who will be bearing a baby for future parents).

Surrogate maternity does not take place when the woman who is an egg donor will also be bearing the baby. Then from the physiological point of view she is the biological mother, rather than a surrogate one. So in this case,. Having handed the child to an infertile couple she will simply sell him/her.

«In this case no agreement will have any juridical force, because article 35 of the Convention about child's rights prohibits selling children for whatever reason and in whatever form, — explains Taras Lukash, a lawyer of the capital juridical company «Salkom». — If such a mother refuses to hand the child over to the infertile couple any court will be on her side and will defend mother's rights, but will oblige her to return the money she received for her aid.. «...Who will give them (infertile couple.— Editor of the «2000») a guarantee, that the surrogate mother doesn't drink, has passed all the necessary examinations for AID, hepatitis or syphilis and that these examinations reflect real situation?..» — continues the German journalist Yens Hartman.

Accurate information can be given to the couple by a specialized medical institution. Before starting the AVF procedure any human reproduction clinic is sure to carry out not only tests for all above mentioned infections but also the full investigation of the woman's body. Mothers for such programs are selected by health indications very carefully.

As to the number of couples made happy in Ukrainian Centers by Surrogate Maternity programs there are no official data, because, both databases and the number of such women refer to confidential information. Although directors of the capital clinics assert that up to 20 programs of this kind are accomplished yearly.

Surrogate Maternity. «AVF. Legal aspect of the Issue

«...However, it is very difficult to predict juridical and medical risks both for infertile couples and surrogate mothers. Irina says that at concluding the agreement she did not get any legal advice in the end I have no guaranty that the German couple will really take the child...»

Medical risks are minimized by the clinic personnel, who observe the mother's state through all 9 months. A legal firm will help to minimize juridical risks whose experts will draw up an agreement and consider all nuances.

A case when a couple refuses to take the child is just incredible. If in a family there appears a problem of having a child then many call it not a problem but a misfortune. Not a single year passes when the couple having visited all possible specialized clinics, having tried all kinds of treatment comes to understanding that they are destined not to become mother and father. And suddenly somebody gives them such a hope they spend enormous money for mother's compensation, legal registration, fees to the clinic (average price of the AVF procedure in Ukraine is 6500 hrn.), wait for the appearance of their little "wonder" for 9 months ... and refuse?

The new Family Code of Ukraine states that genetic mother and father are the parents of the child after his/her birth. They are entrusted with responsibility and care. Parents have no right to abandon the child, and the woman who gives birth to him cannot demand to acknowledge her rights as a mother. If a surrogate mother is married then it is necessary, that her husband give his written consent for the AVF program, certified by the Notary.

In the agreement, drawn up by a lawyer, to be concluded by the mother and father before carrying out the AVF procedure, there are also such provisions as, for example, the number of delivered children. So there is no question of leaving the surrogate mother with one of two or three babies.

«I don't remember such situations,— tells Yevgeniy (at his request we do not give his real name), a mediator in the «Surrogate maternity» program, I got acquainted with in the Internet having read an advertisement., — "A family who goes through all this, feels happy when more than one baby is delivered. You know I even hate calling women who save other people's fates surrogate mothers. Because immediately an association with something forged appears. I prefer the name —"prenatal nurse". I had several situations when a family asked if the woman would be able to bear one more baby for them later.

Quite often the spouses introduce into the agreement such a provision as an additional sum of money if more than one child is delivered. If a defect in the embryo development is detected the pregnancy is interrupted.. Unfortunately there are pathologies which cannot be detected at an early stage. The agreement provides for this unpleasant moment in such a case the genetic parents make full settlement with the surrogate mother and take care of the child themselves.

Surrogate mother. Service, not an ovigerm to be compensated

"Also summarizes the advantages of Ukraine on the market of the reproductive medicine: «We are much cheaper than our rivals in the West. We offer the world standard, our women are beautiful, and we are poor. », — concludes Yens Hartman.

Is it worth saying that the alleged "author" of these words has been extremely surprised at their so cynical interpretation? And the author of the material has not outlined that besides financial problems there is a number of more important causes, and the problem is much deeper in other countries.

In Germany not only the surrogate maternity is regarded a breach of the Law, but the ovigerm donation as well. In Great Britain, for example, the surrogate maternity program is permitted, but by Law the woman, who delivered the child, is considered a real mother of the child and if she is married her husband is considered a father.

Such way of settling the problem of infertility is outlaw in Austria, Sweden, and Norway and is also forbidden in some states of the USA.

« Infertile couples arrive here from abroad not only for the surrogate maternity program, - in the clinic there are a lot of foreign patients who are capable of bearing their baby themselves, but their reproductive system has been unbalanced, i.e. they need a donor's egg. Of course, the money aspect is available.. In the USA, for instance, such program costs about 120 000 USD. But they lack donors and couples have to wait for at least 4 years. If to take into account that abroad people make the decision to have a child much later than here, by the age of 30-40 (and this is the end of the reproductive age), it turns out that they have no other way but to seek for the alternative to adopting in other countries».

So far in Ukraine there is no acute problem with egg donors, but still they are not abundant. A woman may take part in the program not more than 3-4 times. Probably with the growth of well-being there will be no sufficient egg donors in Ukraine too.

"Only some ten years ago Americans and Germans used to come to countries of Central Europe for the surrogate maternity programs and egg donors" — "but those countries kept on developing, their standard of living was improving all the time, the number of those willing to become egg donors drastically reduced, and now clinics can use donor eggs only for needs inside their countries .It is quite probable that soon patients will go not to Ukraine but to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and further to the East"

Fortunately the level of medicine in our country allows not only to fertilize a woman, but also to lead the couple through all months of pregnancy, to render timely assistance, consult and provide safe child birth.