I subscribe to a newsletter with updates about the situation regarding surrogacy in Ukraine. A couple of days ago I received this news.
I'm just so shocked and sickened by the determination to continue to make use of Ukrainian women by any means possible. Shattered by war, any Ukrainian woman still seeking to resort to surrogacy surely must be as vulnerable as can be, any person who seeks to use these women in this way is reprehensible.
We all knew international surrogacy tourism is just people trafficking but this is in plain sight and utterly blatant.
What's next for intended parents working with Ukraine?
When war came to Ukraine, hundreds of international families were already pinning their hopes on surrogacy there. Some had shipped their embryos to the country. Others had travelled there to create them. Some had signed on to work with specific surrogates and were poised to begin. But everything stopped in late February with the Russian invasion.
Now, two months in, there is no real end in sight. Intended parents are looking for other options.
This past week, I spoke by Zoom with Uliana Dorofeyeva, who is medical director of Ovogene, an egg bank based in Lviv, and who also works with International Fertility Group (IFG), a surrogacy agency headquartered in Israel. She described a plan to temporarily divert some Ukrainian surrogacy arrangements to another country.
Early in the war, Ovogene evacuated over 12,000 embryos out of the country, across the border into Slovakia, says Dorofeyeva. The embryos are now being held securely in a facility in Bratislava. The company was able to do this quickly, she says, because they already had a working relationship with a Bratislava clinic prior to the war.
Couples looking to move forward with transfers using their own bodies can work with the Slovak clinic. But since surrogacy is not legal in Slovakia, people pursuing surrogacy must go elsewhere.
For clients whose Ukrainian surrogacy plans were interrupted by war, IFG is now offering a new option. Couples who already had contracts and arrangements in place can continue working with their assigned Ukrainian surrogate. They will just move the arrangement to another surrogacy-friendly country.
The first such country on offer is Georgia, which, says Dorofeyeva, has surrogacy laws that are similar to Ukraine's. Dorofeyeva says that 30 couples have already expressed interest.
Here's how it would work.
Embryos stored in Slovakia (or elsewhere outside Ukraine) would be shipped to one of three clinics in Georgia: Invitro, Beta, or GGRC.
The same Ukrainian surrogates who had already been contracted to work with couples in Ukraine would continue to work with those couples, but in Georgia. About half of these women, estimates Dorofeyeva, are now outside Ukraine, living in Poland, Slovakia or Romania. To continue the surrogacy, they would be asked to travel to Tbilisi, Georgia's capital.
Unlike many countries, including Ukraine, says Dorofeyeva, Georgia allows foreign women to enter the country and act as surrogates there.
Existing paperwork would be transferred to Georgia by IFG. New paperwork would be drawn up to establish relationships with the Georgian clinics.
Once in Georgia, and once the new paperwork was prepared, a surrogate would come under the care of a Georgian fertility clinic. Doctors there would start her on drugs to prepare her uterus, transfer the embryo and monitor for implantation and pregnancy.
If a pregnancy is established and goes smoothly, the Ukrainian surrogate would be free to move somewhere else — back to Poland or Slovakia or Romania, for instance. She could return there for the remainder of her first trimester and all of her second trimester, says Dorofeyeva. IFG will arrange for medical support and pregnancy care throughout that time.
Women whose surrogate pregnancies are more medially bumpy would be required to stay in Georgia, however, says Dorofeyeva.
IFG will cover the cost of travel to and from Georgia and accommodation while there. They will also ensure that the woman is paid the promised fee for her work as a surrogate. Under IFG's arrangement, the intended parents and the surrogate do not know each other's identities.
At 30 weeks of pregnancy the surrogate would be required to return to Georgia and spend the last trimester there. She would give birth in Georgia. The parents would then travel to Georgia, complete their paperwork, and take their baby home.
It is also possible that a surrogate will return to Ukraine to give birth. That will be decided around week 28 of pregnancy, says Dorofeyeva. If the situation is stable in Ukraine, some parents may opt for that. The contracts established in Georgia will allow for either contingency.
The war briefly paused Ukrainian surrogacy. But Ukrainian surrogacy is now resuming in new forms.