Spanish couples undergoing surrogacy processes left in legal limbo in Ukraine
By Silvia Blanco,
El País
| 08. 31. 2018
A total of 30 families are unable to secure passports for their children, after the Foreign Affairs Ministry says it has detected reports of malpractice and possible trafficking
The Spanish Consulate in Kiev is examining the cases of 30 Spanish families currently in Ukraine and who are unable to obtain a Spanish passport for their babies after entering into what is an illegal practice back home: paying a surrogate to carry their child.
According to a statement issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, “dealing with this kind of case is a very delicate matter for the Consular Department of the Spanish Embassy in Kiev as it has received reports in recent months of possible cases of malpractice linked to assisted conception, such as the possible trafficking of minors.”
The statement also warns against “entering into any surrogate pregnancy process within this context.”
The Consulate was echoing a post on the Spanish Embassy’s website, which alerted Spanish nationals to the scams and shoddy practices of certain assisted-reproduction clinics in Ukraine, involving irregularities in the pregnancy process, induced abortions six weeks into the pregnancy so couples are forced to embark on another costly IVF treatment, and a general lack of medical attention during pregnancy.
Until July, babies born to...
Related Articles
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia
As has been discussed in recent issues of Biopolitical Times (1, 2), there are, increasingly, companies that claim to be selling parents better babies by selecting the “best” embryos. These services don’t come cheap – think $50,000, or even more, for embryo testing, plus perhaps as much again for IVF and concomitant services. To most of us, that is extremely expensive...
By Margaux MacColl, The San Francisco Standard | 09.17.2025
Designer babies are coming soon to an IVF clinic near you.
Nucleus Genomics, founded by Kian Sadeghi in 2020, when he was just 20, got its start analyzing genomes to weigh a person’s risk of everything from cancer to ADHD...
By Marianne Lamers, NEMO Kennislink [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 09.23.2025
Een rijtje gespreide vulva’s gaapt de bezoeker aan. Zó ziet een bevalling eruit, en zó een baarmoeder met foetus. Een zwangerschap, maar dan zonder zwangere vrouw, gestript van zorgen, gêne en pijn. De zwangerschapsmodellen en oefenbekkens, te zien in de...
