To date, no binding text has been adopted on the issue at the international level. Although the practice is currently authorized in a limited number of countries (some American states, Canada, the U.K., Ukraine, Russia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, and India), many countries maintain a legal vagueness on the issue, especially concerning the recognition of children born by surrogate motherhood abroad. It has the effect of considerably expanding the boundaries of the practice.
Aude Mirkovic, senior lecturer in law and one of the main organizers and coordinator of the initiative, told CNA that one major issue facing countries where surrogacy is still illegal is that foreign commercial companies are given an avenue to come and recruit potential clients.
“We are particularly aware of this issue in France as we are experiencing very aggressive canvassing by mainly Ukrainian and American companies that come to sell us their services with impunity; we just let it happen,” she said.
“The result is that women are being used, exploited to give birth to children for clients in various countries, and these children are being ordered and delivered in execution of a contract,” Mirkovic said.
“Not to mention the damage to filiation, the separation from the woman who bore them, which deliberately exposes them to the wound of abandonment,” she continued.
The main interest of this collective statement, according to Mirkovic, is to draw attention to the issue at the international level in order to prompt a global response. Hence the geographical diversity of the experts who took part in the initiative and the participation, as an observer, of Suzanne Aho, member of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, at last week’s conference.