More than 45% of our parents are single men, gay couples, or single gay men, who, at a certain point in their lives, have
received the call of parenthood. Surrogacy for gay couples, or for single men, is the best way to achieve parenthood,
due to the practical impossibility of a successful international adoption process. The number of surrogacy cases in Spain
has, in the last two years, surpassed the number of international adoptions.
Surrogacy for gays is a practice that is being carried out in fewer and fewer countries. Unfortunately, as the years have
gone by, doors have been closing, such as in NEPAL, THAILAND, CAMBODIA, LAOS, VIETNAM and MEXICO. We are not referring to
the fact that surrogacy for gays or for heterosexual couples was allowed in those countries. In the countries mentioned,
there was no law on surrogacy, and those who made a process here took advantage of a "legal vacuum", with the premise that
"what the law does not prohibit, is allowed", but in those countries there was no legislation. Now there is, and it does not
allow surrogacy for gays.
Although there are many countries where surrogacy can be performed, not all of them accept gay couples to perform surrogacy
in those countries. This greatly reduces the list compared to heterosexual couples, who have more than 10 destinations where
surrogacy can be performed.
Since its inception, Gestlife's philosophy has been to offer all possible surrogacy destinations for gay couples to the
intended parents.
We research the countries for gay surrogacy, we visit them, we open our own offices with our own staff (we are not
intermediaries), and we ensure the quality of the services of the providers involved.
In this way we are not obliged to offer only one destination, like some "agencies" who have only one destination to defend
tooth and nail, discouraging all other destinations, because otherwise they do not have "clients". We can really recommend
the most suitable destination for the needs of each parent.
Of course we want you to do the surrogacy process with us. That is what we do. But once you decide to work with us, our
priorities are threefold:
Prevent you from making legal mistakes that could jeopardise your surrogacy process.
To guarantee your medical success; a healthy baby.
Reduce your expenses as much as possible. We prefer that you keep your money for your child, and not for
intermediaries.
We do not offer you a destination, even if it is not ideal for your surrogacy process, just because we do not have a better
one, unlike many of the "agencies".
It is important that the family wishing to undertake LGTBIQ+ surrogacy understands that there are three types of countries
where surrogacy can take place (of course, there is a fourth group, which are countries where surrogacy is forbidden, which
we will not talk about in order not to waste your time, as they do not contribute anything):
These countries have specific legislation that develops the right of the commissioning parent(s) (you or you) to carry out a
surrogacy procedure.
These laws transfer the rights over the child from the surrogate parents to the commissioning parents. These countries have
laws drafted by their parliaments, or subsequently modified by rulings of high courts, such as the Constitutional Court,
allowing certain people to carry out surrogacy processes.
These are the countries where a surrogacy process can be carried out with all the guarantees:
Following the premise that what is not forbidden is allowed, some agencies offer destinations where there is no specific
surrogacy legislation. It is always easy to find a clinic that is willing to carry out the surrogacy process, but often they
do not offer the necessary medical and legal guarantees.
After all, the medical side does not present too many secrets for a fertility clinic. But surrogacy is not only about
"creating" a child, but also about guaranteeing that the child will be recognised as our child, and that there will be no
legal problems, neither to leave the country, nor to have the child in our country.
And this is where the problems begin in those countries that do not have a specific surrogacy law. Because in the absence of
a law that annuls the natural rights of the gestational carrier ("the mother is the one who gives birth", according to the
majority of legislation in the world), in favour of the commissioning parents, the gestational carrier in these cases
retains all rights over the child.
In other words, she is the mother to all intents and purposes, and keeps all her rights intact. And, if she wishes, she can
prevent the child from being recognised as our child, prevent the child from leaving the country, or even extort huge sums
of money from us. She is the mother and the authorities in her country recognise her as such. We have nothing to do in the
courts of her country if anything happens. Therefore, of course, we strongly advise against taking legal action in such
countries, as there are no legal guarantees for the commissioning parents, and the most beautiful of adventures can turn
into the worst of nightmares. In this list of countries, Colombia or Guatemala appear recently, where there is no
legislation of any kind and there are no guarantees whatsoever.
Within this group of countries, MEXICO or COLOMBIA have recently appeared, countries that do not offer the necessary
guarantees.
There are two types of surrogacy law:
Altruistic gestation: in this type of legislation, a maximum is established for the compensation that the gestational
carrier can receive, given that the law aims to ensure that the carrier does not enrich herself.
In certain countries, the figure ranges from zero in Portugal's previous law (currently annulled by the Portuguese
Constitutional Court) to 20,000 Canadian dollars in Canada. Paying a higher amount to the gestational carrier is a criminal
offence punishable by imprisonment.
Commercial surrogacy: although we do not like this term, it refers to legislation that allows the surrogate to be paid
compensation agreed between the parties, without limits.
Due to the scarcity of surrogacy destinations for same-sex couples or single men, crossborder programmes are often created
to offer an alternative, but do not offer the same guarantee as a country where there is legislation. They are often
programmes that start in one country and end in another, in order to comply with the laws of both countries. They are not
illegal programmes, however, as we have said, they do not offer the same legal guarantees as those developed in countries
where there is a specific surrogacy law.
René Magritte's painting "This is not a pipe" where the author shows us that it looks like a pipe, but it is not, because it
is simply the image of a pipe
Just as René Magritte taught us that a drawing of a pipe is not a pipe, something similar to surrogacy is not surrogacy.
Surrogacy occurs when there is a law or jurisprudence that allows it, and legally cedes the rights of the gestational
carrier to the commissioning parent or parents. The rest, although it may seem so, is not surrogacy. And the nuance is of
vital importance, because in those countries where there is no law on surrogacy, or the jurisprudence does not contemplate
it, the gestational carrier will be today, tomorrow and always the mother of the child, with rights over the child if she so
desires. And you have not come to Gestlife to have legal problems in the future.
Some "agencies" have been appearing lately, offering especially to the LGTBI collective destinations that do not offer the
minimum guarantees, neither legal nor medical. Countries with little or no experience in surrogacy, with no law to protect
it. Countries where surrogate mothers receive ridiculous compensations (sometimes against existing laws), which do not
exceed 10,000 US dollars, when an American surrogate receives 50,000 UDS, or a Ukrainian mother 24,000 USD.
These are some of the "INVENTIONS" that you may come across, and which we strongly advise against. As we have told you,
Gestlife has offices in all the countries where a process can be done legally. If it were possible to do a surrogacy process
with all the guarantees in any of these destinations, we would have had offices in those countries some time ago. And if we
don't have them, it is because there are no medical or legal guarantees.
Mexico is included in this list of countries, which have no legislation on surrogacy. Only 3 states regulate surrogacy in
Mexico, and two of them prohibit it for foreigners. The third prohibits it for everyone, regardless of nationality. Only the
state of Tabasco until January 2016 allowed surrogacy for foreigners, until its closure on that date.
The "Mexican agencies" are the sum of a few people who worked in the sector during the years when surrogacy for foreigners
was allowed. But there is no company dedicated to the whole process, which makes the price of the programmes more expensive
as each intermediary wants his or her fees.
Currently, some agencies are again starting to offer surrogacy in MEXICO, in MEXICO DF, where the courts have already
granted several surrogacy surrogacy to foreigners. Although it may be a valid option, there are two facts that must be taken
into account when considering surrogacy in Mexico. For example, the surrogate mother retains the rights over the child, as
there is no surrogacy law that allows her to renounce them in favour of a third party. It is an unstable country in this
sense, and the clinics have very poor results. The agencies present the processes as altruistic (the surrogate should not
charge anything), when they are not, which will sooner or later end up creating a serious legal problem for the parents with
the authorities for misrepresentation. Please consult your family advisor at Gestlife, and we will be happy to explain it to
you in detail.
Finally, assisted reproduction clinics in Mexico, although spectacular in appearance, have a success rate at the first
attempt (in the first embryo transfer to the pregnant woman) of less than 20%, a rate much lower than the European average
of 68%. This would not be serious if the programmes were with unlimited number of IVFs or transfers, but these programmes do
not exist, and you have to pay transfer by transfer, IVF by IVF, so that a country that apparently should be more
economical, ends up being an economic nightmare. We know this well because Gestlife had two offices in Mexico until July
2017.
For all these reasons, Mexico is currently one of the "inventions" of the sector, in which some intermediaries profit, but
you will have the problems.
In Russia with the birth of the child in Prague (Czech Republic) (impossible since 24-5-22 due to the new Russian law
prohibiting surrogacy for foreigners.
This type of programme, as we have said, is done because the end of the programme takes place in a European country, where
there is no specific surrogacy law. Some parents resort to this programme if they cannot resort to another one, or because
the process takes place at the end in a country within the Schengen area, which allows them to return to the country of
origin with a certain degree of ease.
However, it has significant drawbacks:
Faced with the practical impossibility of finding pregnant women in Canada, some agency had the "brilliant idea" of carrying
out in vitro fertilisation processes with a Russian mother, and once pregnant, sending her to CANADA.
This system, which may seem original and practical, violates Canadian law, since no Russian mother accepts financial
compensation for a surrogacy programme below 20,000 euros (entirely for herself), thus violating Canadian law.
The fact that the payment to the surrogate mother is made in Russia does not exempt us from the crime since the process will
finally take place in CANADA where the child will be born, and therefore we would be subject to the laws of that country,
and not those of Russia. On the other hand, we would be in breach of the new Russian law.
This type of process is reserved for Kenyan citizens, and does not offer any guarantees to foreign nationals. Once again,
the pregnant woman has rights over the baby.
Colombia has no law on gestational surrogacy, and there is a strong movement to ban it. They lack experience in the sector;
they are one of the countries that have signed up for so-called "health tourism".
If you want to see the full article, click
here
If you want to see the full article, click
here
If you want to see the full article, click
here
there never was such a thing as a penny for a nickel. Cheap things always end up being expensive, as our
parents and grandparents have taught us so many times. In surrogacy there is no room for "inventions, because the full
weight of the law can soon fall on our shoulders.
If it were possible to offer viable programmes, with absolute legal certainty, in one of these countries Gestlife would
already have an office in that country, as we do in all countries where there are legal and medical guarantees.
For reasons such as this, the total absence of legislation, jurisprudence, and legal and medical guarantees, prevent us from
being able to recommend this type of destination.
Finally, we would like to warn you against the "siren song" of some agencies, which offer original destinations, as if they
were travel agencies, where you can choose a destination à la carte.
They offer processes starting normally in Ukraine (which is absolutely legal) but ending in countries where there is no
legislation, the legislation is restricted. They offer delivery in:
All of these countries lack legislation, or have restrictive legislation, which can lead to serious setbacks when it comes
to not breaking the law and being able to return to Spain and not have problems with the Spanish authorities. As Eugenio
D'ors used to say "experiments, with soda pop". Gestlife cannot recommend these destinations, because sooner or later they
will be a source of serious problems. It is not a legal surrogacy.
Check our surrogacy prices
Surrogacy for homosexuals
In which countries can surrogacy for gay couples take place?
Surrogacy for homosexuals
SURROGACY IN CANADA
Surrogacy for gays in Canada
SURROGACY IN THE UNITED STATES
Surrogacy in the United States for gay people
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Fatherhood changed our lives. There was a before, and an after. And the after, it was much better. So neither short nor lazy, we started this subject years ago of making the unreal real, the impossible possible. Today we are more than 100 people in 7 countries.
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