MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish television star Ana Obregon has revealed that her newly adopted daughter, born to an unidentified surrogate mother, was conceived using the frozen sperm of Obregon’s son who died of cancer three years ago.
In Spain, all forms of surrogacy, including the so-called “altruistic” ones, in which no money is exchanged, are illegal.
Here’s a look at surrogacy laws in various countries:
* Surrogacy for profit is prohibited in Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Brazil, Great Britain and Australia, but all allow some forms of altruistic surrogacy.
* Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Taiwan and Spain prohibit all forms of surrogacy.
*There is no federal surrogacy legislation in the United States, and some states allow commercial surrogacy arrangements.
* Ukraine was until the Russian invasion an international surrogacy center, involving thousands of babies every year, by some estimates, many of them brought abroad by foreigners. Reuters reported that when the war broke out, some foreign couples traveled to collect their children, but others were being cared for in a makeshift clinic by nurses.
*Georgia has also been a popular destination for fertility tourism, although commercial surrogacy is legally available only to heterosexual couples. Georgian law does not recognize surrogate mothers as the parents of the child they have given birth to.
* Surrogacy is also allowed in Russia, although the practice has been criticized by religious groups for commercializing the birth of children and, in December 2022, lawmakers indicated they would soon adopt a law banning foreigners from using Russian surrogate mothers.
* Colombia allows commercial surrogacy, but although the practice is recognized by the constitutional court, there are few regulations. A legislator from Colombia’s Chamber of Deputies proposed a bill this year that he said would protect surrogate mothers, future parents and the children themselves.
* For-profit surrogacy flourished in Thailand until 2015, when the country banned it for foreigners after a series of high-profile cases, including an Australian couple accused of abandoning a baby born with Down syndrome.
* Cambodia had no laws regarding surrogacy, but cracked down on agencies since 2016 under human trafficking laws.
(Reporting by Aislinn Laing, additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogotá; Editing by Gareth Jones)