The business of rented wombs is growing rapidly. It is expected to reach 125 billion dollars in 2032

According to analysts’ estimates, the business of surrogacy clinics will reach $14 billion worldwide in 2022. And by 2032, it could exceed $125 billion. Analysts predict a sharp growth in this part of medical services in connection with the growing problems of couples, especially in the West, to conceive children, or in some cases even “not to bother” with pregnancy. For example, in Britain, the cradle of artificial insemination, the number of children born this way has increased tenfold in the last decade. While interest is growing in rich countries, in some countries where childless couples went in the past, governments have severely limited or banned the possibility of having a child with a foreign woman. The Vatican even recently described this method of conception as immoral human trafficking.

Surrogate motherhood, i.e. a situation where a surrogate mother takes the child to a couple, who subsequently inherits parental rights. It is becoming a topic in many countries. In the Czech Republic, legislators decided to address the situation in recent years after the Czech police uncovered a network of Ukrainian women who offered the possibility of carrying a child in the Czech Republic for a fee. It was because of the lack of legislation that the police postponed the case.

Until recently, Ukraine was one of the destinations of childless couples from all over the world. Before the Russian invasion of the country, according to various estimates, it performed between two and three thousand paid surrogates a year. One of the reasons was the legal anchoring of the entire procedure, where there are minimal obstacles for surrogate mothers. One of the few legal conditions is that the surrogate mother must be the mother of at least one child herself. What is unique from a global perspective is the legal possibility to have surrogate parents on the birth certificate without the need for court approval.

Ukraine’s boom in surrogacy was helped by the bans of 2015, when surrogacy was banned by India and Thailand, due to mass medical tourism. Also, the price of commercial surrogacy ranges from 25,000 to 50,000 dollars, which is many times less than the price in, for example, the USA. However, in the time of the coronavirus, the largest clinic specializing in surrogacy caused a scandal when it published a video of almost 50 newborns waiting to be picked up by a couple who had ordered but could not visit Ukraine due to the coronavirus pandemic. The footage went around the world, and the presidential commissioner for children’s rights, Mykola Kuleba, called it child trafficking. Voices calling for a ban or regulation began to be heard. For now, however, commercial surrogacy remains legal in Ukraine, even if the war situation complicates the whole process for foreign applicants.

It is politicians in India who have come to strict regulation. And this after the country was one of the first to legislate surrogacy since 2002. This led to a boom and the development of up to 3,000 clinics that offered this service to foreigners. However, in 2015, in response to public pressure, India completely banned surrogacy. From 2021, only a heterosexual couple with Indian citizenship can apply for surrogacy.

Surrogacy is currently legal in Mexico, for example, which reports a 30% increase in requests after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Iran, Russia and some US states. In Mexico, commercial surrogacy costs around $50,000 to $70,000. By far the most, but with adequate care, applicants will pay in some US states, where prices can climb up to $120,000.

On the contrary, Europe is starting to take an increasingly tough stance on surrogate motherhood. In March, the Vatican published the document Dignitas infinita, in which there is a list of acts that seriously violate human dignity. Surrogacy, a document approved by Pope Francis, is considered human trafficking. The European Parliament also came to a similar conclusion in the past few days, which in the first reading approved the modification of the directive on human trafficking so that it prohibits forced surrogacy.