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Body for hire

Lyudmila and Alexander from Ukraine did not dare to have a baby for a long time. When they decided to conceive one, it was already too late. Lyudmila is 49 years old, and the medical examination showed she can not bear children any more. Their family's friend Elena agreed to help them, she would carry their baby; she already has a son that she raised all by herself.

Lyudmila and Alexander promised to pay her for assistance a total of $10 000, $5 000 of which has already been paid. There was no written contract between them. And after the baby was born Elena stopped responding to phone calls, she does not want to give the child to his rightful parents.

As the saying goes, "it always looks good on paper." The Ukrainian laws are written with the intent to protect the customer's interests for any surrogacy program. But in reality, parents are totally powerless and helpless to force the surrogate mother give up the child after birth to the intended legal parents. The only recourse available for the legal parents in these cases is to hire a good lawyer and go to court. If the Ukrainian justice system fails to assist, the only hope is the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

It is surprising that the first and only case in post-Soviet borders when a surrogate mother fails to give the baby to the rightful parents occurred nowhere but in Ukraine. The Ukrainian laws on the legal regulation of surrogacy were once considered to be the best in CIS, a lot better than in Russia where laws require the legal parents to claim a consent of the surrogate mother to put their names into the birth register. Cases like this in general have not been reported since 1995 when Russia first adopted the regulations on surrogacy issues.

Andrey Malakhov, a Russian TV megastar	Father's grief over loss of daughter
Mother can't help crying	Unfortunate parents
They can see their daughter on a TV screen only	A Ukrainian surrogate who "kept" their children

 

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