Surrogacy laws by country

[4] In 2006, Australian senator Stephen Conroy and his wife Paula Benson announced that they had arranged for a child to be born through egg donation and gestational surrogacy.

[21] The Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRC) permits only altruistic surrogacy: gestational carriers may be reimbursed for approved expenses but payment of any other consideration or fee is illegal.

The Ministry of Health has established "departmental rules" which prohibit medical professionals from performing surrogacy procedures, with violations punished by fines (but not criminal liabilities).

[26] In July 2016, a right wing political party, Democratic Center, has introduced for the second time a bill in order to determine the concept of surrogacy and to forbid any types of it.

An added advantage for Europeans is that, due to the Schengen Treaty, they can freely travel home as soon as the baby is born and deal with citizenship issues at that time, as opposed to applying at their own embassy in Greece.

8 of Law 3089/2002), one of the prerequisites for granting the judicial permission for surrogacy was also the fact that the surrogate mother and the commissioning parents should be Greek citizens or permanent residents.

However, the law has recently (in July 2014) changed and the new provisions of L. 4272/2014 foresee now that the surrogacy is allowed to applicants or surrogate mothers who have their permanent or temporary residence in Greece.

With this new law Greece becomes the only EU country with a comprehensive framework to regulate, facilitate and enforce surrogacy, as according to the explanatory statement of the art.

[54][55] In February 2020, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled the restriction on same-sex couples from entering surrogacy agreements as discriminatory, thus giving the state one year to change the law.

[56][57] In July 2021, the Supreme Court made a second ruling stating that legislation banning same-sex couples and single men from becoming parents via surrogacy would be null and void within six months.

[59] However, the landscape began to shift in 1999 when Ayaollah Ali Hussein Al Khamene’j, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a fatwa addressing surrogacy.

[59] The fatwa was a turning point, providing detailed guidance on the permissibility of assisted reproduction techniques, including surrogacy, within the framework of Shia Islam.

[60] While, not codified as law, ijtihad holds significant sway in Shia Islam and allows a degree of flexibility and adaption to modern circumstances.

40 approved on February 19, 2004, by the Italian Parliament, titled "Regulations concerning medically assisted procreation", any form of selling of either gametes or embryos, as well as surrogacy, is prohibited and punished with jail time lasting between three months and two years and with a fine ranging between 600,000 and one million euros (article 12, subsection 6).

[64] In 2023, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ordered municipalities to follow a December 2021 court decision to stop certifying foreign birth certificates of children born to Italian same-sex couples through use of a surrogate in another country.

[71] In 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation found that the part of civil code of the state of Tabasco that restricted surrogacy to married Mexican couples violated Article 4 of the Constitution of Mexico and therefore is unconstitutional.

[73] In regions of Mexico where surrogacy is unregulated, Amparo trials regularly take place when intended parents petition the federal court to order the local civil registry to register their baby born through surrogacy with a birth certificate showing only the name(s) of the intended parent(s), and in the majority of cases, a favorable ruling (Amparo) is issued.

[84] The Philippine Society of Reproductive Medicine prohibits assisting in the practice of in vitro fertilization and surrogacy through donor sperm and egg cells among its members.

[95] The gestational surrogacy requires a written contract that explicitly deals with the possibility of abortion in certain cases, the Ordem dos Médicos' opinion (which does not need to be positive) and the National Council of Medically Assisted Reproduction's (CNPMA) permission.

[102] Public opinion in general is surrogacy-friendly; recent cases of a famous singer and a well-known businesswoman who openly used services of gestational surrogates received positive news coverage.

[104] Children born to heterosexual couples who are not officially married or single intended parents through gestational surrogacy are registered in accordance to analogy of jus (art.

[107] Religious authorities in Saudi Arabia do not allow the use of gestational carriers, instead suggesting medical procedures to restore fertility and ability to deliver.

The South Africa Children's Act of 2005 (which came fully into force in 2010) enabled the "commissioning parents" and the surrogate to have their surrogacy agreement validated by the High Court even before fertilization.

Even if a donation program took place and there is no biological relation between the child and the intended mother, their names will be on the birth certificate (Clause 3 of article 123 of the Family Code of Ukraine).

[120][119] Surrogacy in Ukraine is not regulated in law as commercial, it is more close to altruistic, as the so-called "payment" is not performed to the surrogate mother, it is called a compensation and is not under obligation to pay taxes.

[123] In March 2022 Deutsche Welle reported that all-inclusive packages did cost between €30,000 ($33,000) and €40,000; and that the Ukrainian woman earned about €15,000 to €20,000 for her taking part in the surrogacy program — (that was) several times more than the average annual salary.

[127] ‘It will only be in the clearest case of the abuse of public policy that the court will be able to withhold an order if otherwise welfare considerations support its making.’[128] Regardless of contractual or financial consideration for expenses, surrogacy arrangements are not legally enforceable under section 1A[129] of the Surrogacy Arrangements Act; therefore, a surrogate mother maintains the legal right of determination for the child, even if they are genetically unrelated.

[155] On the other hand, it is unclear how or whether same-sex couples could benefit these laws, since the 2008 ballot measure that made it illegal for unmarried, cohabiting individuals to adopt or provide foster care to minors.

This act allows couples, married or unmarried, or individuals, homosexual or heterosexual, to use their own gametes or those of an egg and/or sperm donor to conceive a child via surrogacy.

Under the new law, surrogacy will only be allowed among married couples, who do not have any common child, after doctors confirm the wife can not give birth even with technical support.