The French couple wanted to become parents so badly that they broke the laws of two nations in doing so.
Through the help of a broker, the couple found a Ukrainian woman who gave birth to twin girls for them in January through surrogacy.
But authorities stopped the parents on March 21 at Ukraine’s western border as they attempted to take the babies home to France.
Lacking legal immigration documents for the babies, they tried to sneak across the Hungarian border with the infants hidden under a mattress in their van. The case again highlights the ethical dilemmas of surrogacy motherhood and Ukraine’s leading international role in the practice.
Now Alain and Margot (not their real names) face excruciating choices from their rented apartment in Uzhorod.
They can abandon their homeland, where children born to surrogate mothers are not legally recognized.
A father holds one of the baby twins girls born to a Ukrainian surrogate mother. (Laurent Geslin)
Or they can surrender their children to Ukrainian authorities, who have charged the husband and his father, who accompanied the married couple, with attempting to illegally transport children abroad. They have vowed not to abandon their children.
When our surrogate got pregnant in May 2010 we were in the seventh heaven. We were so naive.
– Margot
For now, instated, the married couple has chosen instead to appeal to any European country that recognizes surrogate births to grant their children citizenship.
“When our surrogate got pregnant in May 2010 we were in the seventh heaven,” said Margot, as she caressed one of the twin girls in her arms, shifting from smiles to tears. “We were so naive.”
Like many other infertile couples, Alain and Margot tried to conceive or adopt a baby. They gave up after 10 years, and turned to the Internet for help.
Their search led them to the Biotex agency in Kyiv. They said the firm’s owner, Albert Mann, promised to find a woman who would conceive their baby. Mann, they said, also offered legal assistance in taking the baby out of the country.
In doing so, the French couple joined a growing number of infertile foreign couples flocking to Ukraine in search of women who, for a fee, are willing to become impregnated and give birth to babies.
Ukraine can offer all the services that the United States does, but it would be 3-4 times cheaper and there is no problem to find a healthy surrogate mother.
– Serhiy Antonov, head of Center of Medical Law in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s reproductive clinics and surrogate agencies have grown largely unimpeded since 2002, when surrogacy became legal in Ukraine. In the unregulated field, unscrupulous practices have arisen. That’s why many nations, including France, have outlawed the practice while others have tightly controlled it.
Besides Ukraine’s unregulated environment, the nation has clinics that offer cheaper surrogacy services.
“Ukraine can offer all the services that the United States does, but it would be 3-4 times cheaper and there is no problem to find a healthy surrogate mother,” said Serhiy Antonov, head of Center of Medical Law in Kyiv. While surrogacy costs up to $100,000 in the United States, in Ukraine the procedure is available as cheaply as $30,000.
Clinics say the number of foreign clients doubles every year. A single Intersono reproductive clinic in Lviv said that it had 50 foreign clients just last year.
Many surrogate mothers come from poor rural areas and get about $12,000 for her services, plus a bonus for twins and a food allowance from pregnancy.
As with many other clinics, Mann of the Biotex agency used by the French couple said that he finds surrogate mothers mostly in villages near Kyiv. “I usually place an ad [looking for surrogate mothers] to a provincial newspaper and many women apply,” Mann said.
French couple story
After three months of correspondence, Alain and Margot came to Kyiv in February 2010 to sign their contract with Biotex. They did so despite a law in France, in effect since 1994, that prohibits surrogacy in France and, therefore, prohibits Alain and Margot from bringing their children back home.
We wanted children and we saw that many Italian couples worked with Biotex and took their children home.– Margot
But the desire to have children proved stronger than their willingness to obey this French law.
“We wanted children and we saw that many Italian couples worked with Biotex and took their children home [surrogacy is equally prohibited in Italy],” said Margot, justifying the couple’s actions.
After the twins were born in January, Alain and Margot received the birth certificates in their names. According to Ukraine’s laws, surrogate mothers do not have legal rights to the child from conception.
The couple said that Mann advised them to hide their surrogacy agreement and declare the twins as their own when applying for passports to the children at the French Embassy in Ukraine.
The consulate workers, however, suspected a surrogacy arrangement. They sent the couple’s case to a prosecutor in France and did not issue any documents that would have allowed the couple to take the twins home. In France, the legal rights of motherhood go to the woman who gave birth to the child.
“French Embassy workers requested documents, bills, hospitalization records, gynecological supervision,” Margo said. “There was a long list of documents that we couldn’t provide.”
A growing problem
Josetta Mira, who has served as consul in the French embassy in Ukraine since 2008, said that since September they have an increasing number of applications where they surrogacy arrangements are suspected. As a consequence, French passports were not issued to the children.
“In some of the cases, refusals to give French citizenship or travelling documents have been issued by the prosecutor,” Mira said.
An official from Italian Embassy in Ukraine’s consulate said that they are also very familiar with this “growing phenomenon.” The official confirmed issuing traveling documents to children he suspected of birth by surrogacy.
Murky dealers
Government officials advise couples not to believe clinics that promise legal help.
One clinic went so far as making this claim: “We guarantee that the legal department of our center will prepare all essential documents for your baby in the proper manner prescribed by our active laws, as we normally do for our clients from France. We guarantee that you will be able to take your child home without any legal problems.”
Mira of the French consul called this statement “clear cut fraud” because clinics “have no power over the decisions of French government to issue visa or passport.” To avoid further “tragedies for children and parents,” the embassy addressed the clinics and the government to put a stop to the cheating.
Desperate and homeless, Alain and Margot are now pleading for any European country to give citizenship to the twins so they can take them out of Ukraine.
While their dreams of parenthood have come true, their lives have become a nightmare because of it. The husband and father-in-law face up to seven years in prison if convicted of the charges against them of illegal border crossing.
But Mann, the owner of the Biotex clinic that helped the couple, thinks they will eventually be allowed to go back home with their baby girls.
“Embassy officials yell and curse, but at the end of the day they give all the surrogate children travelling documents,” Mann said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Katya Grushenko can be reached at [email protected]
