KIEV 30 year old Natalia Klymenko has given birth to three babies to strangers. The most recent Surrogacy was during the war last year. The child’s British parents were much more worried than Klymenko, who carried the child.
– I live in the city of Cherkasy, and it’s quiet there. But the British couple did not dare to go there, so we agreed that I would give birth in Uzhhorod and they would pick up the child from there, Klymenko says.
Užhorod is located in western Ukraine on the border with Slovakia. The city has been one of the safest places in the country during the war. The city of Cherkasy, located on the banks of the Dnieper River in central Ukraine, has indeed also been relatively peaceful during the war.
For the first time, Klymenko gave birth to a child for a Ukrainian couple in 2018. She was in dire need of money and noticed an advertisement for a surrogacy program at a bus stop.
– The couple still lives in the city of Lutsk and we keep in touch with each other.
The experience was so interesting for Klymenko that he devoted himself to the topic. Soon she became an agent who brings together a surrogate, parents who want to become parents and an infertility clinic.
– In the case of the first surrogate birth, the motive was money. I bought myself an apartment with the bonus amount. After that, I also started to be motivated by the desire to help.
In 2020, Klymenko started another surrogacy project, where the conception took place in the Czech Republic and the birth took place in Austria. For the third time, she rented out her womb during the war of Russian aggression.
– I’m going to continue as long as my health allows, even until I’m 40, the woman says.
The war has several effects on the industry
According to Klymenko, the Russian attack has not significantly affected surrogates’ fees. Orders still come from, for example, the United States, where renting a uterus is legal, but considerably more expensive.
In Ukraine, giving birth can cost 20,000-30,000 dollars, in the USA more than 100,000 dollars.
Wartime statistics on surrogacy in Ukraine have not been published, but of The Guardian according to the information received from the clinics, during the first year and a half of the attack, more than a thousand children were born in the country with the help of surrogacy.
In 2019, Ukraine had according to the Ministry of Justice 1,500 surrogate births, and almost all of them had a foreign couple as parents.
The number of births seems to have halved during the war. Natalia Klymenko’s perception is that there has been no decisive reduction.
A doctor at the Lita infertility clinic in Kyiv Natalia Vladykina the ones that have decreased are above all births to foreign couples.
– Our number of foreign couples is only one-fifth of what it was before the war. Many do not dare to travel here. They can send the biomaterials by mail, but the child has to be picked up in person, Vladykina says.
Natalia Klymenko also confirms that foreign parents are worried. The British couple didn’t want to travel all the way to Kiev and couldn’t believe that life in Ukraine would go on as normal.
– They asked to send pictures of everyday life and were surprised that the cafes are open, says Klymenko.
However, the beginning of the war was a stressful time for surrogates and parents. Women were taken to safety in western Ukraine or abroad.
– We had one mother in Mariupol who disappeared without a trace, and we don’t know her fate.
Such programs are increasing in Ukraine, where the surrogate spends the entire pregnancy in another country, for example in Georgia.
They wanted to ban surrogacy for the duration of the war
Just before the start of the war in February 2022 to the Ukrainian parliament was given a few draft laws regulating surrogacy. They proposed, among other things, the registration of foreign couples in Ukraine and the setting of an age limit for births and parents.
Because of the war, these bills did not advance in parliament. Instead it has been suggestions ban Surrogacy for foreign couples during the war and for three years after its end.
– These proposals have never ended up as legislative proposals and are no longer under consideration, says the lawyer Oksana Kashintseva.
According to both the lawyer and the doctor, the authors of these proposals do not want to solve problems or improve the legislation, but to promote their own agenda under the guise of war.
– Even though alternative methods such as uterus transplantation are currently being developed, there will continue to be people who are unable to bear a child due to the absence of a uterus or diseases, says Natalia Vladykina, a doctor at the infertility clinic.
Legislation requires development
According to lawyer Oksana Kašyntseva, legislation on surrogacy in Ukraine is at a sufficient level, but some issues require correction.
– There are, for example, cases where the lawyer signs an agreement only with the parents as if the person who gave birth was not a party to it.
Among others, the Ukrainian human rights organization La Strada has expressed concerns that women giving birth are not adequately protected and that the agreements may limit their lives too much.
Doctor Natalia Vladykina is of the opinion that the legislation protects both the birth mother and the parents well, but, for example, issues of equality are still unresolved.
According to the law, Surrogacy in Ukraine is not available to same-sex couples or single people.
Lawyer Kašyntseva is sure that this will change when Ukraine integrates into Europe.
– For example, representatives of sexual minorities have entered into fictitious marriages in order to have a child, but that cannot be a sustainable solution.
Natalia Klymenko, who knows the issue both as a birth mother and as an agent, sees the legislation as being at a sufficient level. However, he is concerned about dishonest actors in the industry.
According to Natalia Klymenko, society still has a somewhat disapproving attitude towards surrogacy.
– And I don’t think this will change quickly.
Instead, Natalia Vladykina sees changes in a more permissive direction since Surrogacy was legalized in Ukraine in 2004.
– I have been an infertility doctor for 15 years, and nowadays people are quite neutral about it. In the beginning, women bought fake bellies to pretend they were pregnant, but now they are already calmly telling that this is the case.