The appearance in the family of the show business stars - singer Alla Pugacheva (64) and comedian Maxim Galkin (37 years old) of twins born by a surrogate mother has stirred public interest in the issue of surrogacy, the government’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper writes.
This topic over the past 10 years has ceased to seem exotic and moved into the sphere of medical and consumer services. The demand for them is growing and according to the market laws, the supply is growing.
The state does not provide of such services to childless couples. Therefore, all the surrogate motherhood services in Russia are provided on a commercial basis. The full program - from the selection of the mother to the registration of the child’s birth certificate costs from 1.5 million to 3 million rubles. And the “mom’s” fees start at about 800,000 rubles. The largest fee, which has been paid to a surrogate mother in a commercial company, is 100,000 euro.
Russian women willingly offer their services as surrogate mothers for European and American childless couples. Lawyer Alexei Kupriyanov notes that the new Law “On the Fundamentals of Health Protection in the Russian Federation” regulates the issues of so-called assisted reproductive technology, including the use of donor and preserved gametes. So far the sex selection in reproductive technologies is forbidden, but the selection of race is allowed. Any healthy woman aged between 20 and 35 years, with at least one healthy own child can become a surrogate mother. A married woman can become a surrogate mother only with the written consent of her spouse. Foreign citizens have the same rights to reproductive technology as Russians.
However, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) disapproves of surrogate motherhood. Archdeacon Andrei Kurayev noted that according to the Fundamentals of the ROC Social Concept of 2000: “Surrogacy ... is unnatural and morally unacceptable, even when the service is provided on a non-profit basis. This technique involves the destruction of deep emotional and spiritual kinship that develops between the mother and the baby during the pregnancy period. Surrogacy hurts both the pregnant woman, the mother’s feelings of which are trampled upon, and the child who may subsequently experience an identity crisis.”