Surrogacy by Country

Surrogate motherhood remains the cause of disputes on moral and ethical issues, it is not recognized by the Catholic Church, and in some countries criminal liability is provided for violations of the law in this area. What is the situation with the use of surrogacy in the world — where it is allowed and where it is forbidden?

Surrogacy in Belgium is not regulated by law, but is actively practiced. Belgium is one of the countries where surrogacy is not regulated at the legislative level. There are no specific regulations that would prohibit or allow the use of the services of surrogate mothers.

In most European countries, surrogacy is prohibited. In some countries, violation of the law in this area entails serious punishment (in Austria, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Estonia).

For the first time, surrogacy in the Czech Republic received its legitimization relatively recently, in 2014, after the adoption of the new Civil Code of the Czech Republic.

Surrogacy in Switzerland is strictly prohibited by law. On January 1, 2001, Switzerland adopted the Law on Assisted Reproductive Technologies, which is one of the toughest in the world.

Surrogacy services is a legal method of reproductive system treatment in Portugal. Portuguese government forbade paying rewards to surrogates in order not to turn carrying the baby into a lucrative business. The first case with such services in Portugal was with a woman who voluntarily agreed to carry a baby for her own daughter.

Nowadays there is a tendency against surrogacy. For example, it’s not legal in Ireland. The Government of the country made attempts to work out special legislative base regulating surrogacy in Ireland but they were not completely successful.

For a long period of time hundreds of infertile couples found their surrogacy happiness in Thailand. But several world-scandal surrogacy journeys made the government of the country review the legal aspects of surrogacy in Thailand which has resulted in ban of the commercial surrogacy for foreigners.

Each year surrogate motherhood becomes more and more popular kind of infertility treatment but on a proper level surrogacy process is debugged only in few countries e.g. Ukraine, the USA, Georgia, Israel etc.