Globally, in 2018 the surrogacy industry was reported to have made a profit of $ 6 billion. In addition, it was projected that by 2025 it would increase to $ 27.5 billion. If fulfilled, it would be an annual growth of 24.5 percent but now, thanks to the pandemic, the figure could be even higher.
In this sense, Eleane Proo Méndez from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences (FCPyS) of UNAM points out that in the United States the average cost of the procedure is 150 thousand dollars and the pregnant woman is paid between 20 thousand and 30 thousand dollars. While in Mexico the business is different because the figure is 90 thousand dollars but the mother is given 9 thousand to 10 thousand.
“In 2020, during the confinement, many women in Ukraine and Mexico were attracted to do it to alleviate some economic hardship. Companies from developed nations demand services in developing countries. For example, until recently India was the preferred site, but when it limited this practice to its citizens, they decided to look for pregnant women in other latitudes ”.
He added that women are asked to travel to the United States (mainly) where they take advantage of their vulnerability, because they are economically dependent on whoever hires them and being away from their environment. In addition, Tijuana is a town where they also look for “surrogacy” because it is a border city, which facilitates access to the neighboring country to the north.
What does it consist of?
According to him Bioethics Committee of Spain, surrogacy is considered when a woman is ready to gestate. Once born, the baby is delivered to the person or persons who commissioned it. There are at least 11 modalities, all of which have in common the deprivation of the condition of a mother to whom they have given birth.
For his part, Méndez said that in our country there is little data but it is known that in Sinaloa at least 26 births of this type were registered from 2016 to 2019. While in Tabasco a similar figure is recorded.
The university student emphasized that it is necessary to keep an eye on the fact that it is not part of an assisted reproduction technique. While processes such as artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization are, and everyone should be able to access them.
“We need to speed up the adoption processes, because they are very tiring and, in fact, that is one of the speeches that has been handled the most from homoparental families, who claim that it can take up to six years, and in the end they are denied. In addition, there is the stigma that if they are not their own sons or daughters, they already have ‘certain genes’ or ‘customs’ and they are very afraid of adopting someone who does not have blood ties ”.
Legal situation in Mexico
In Mexico, legally, the issue began in 1997 when Tabasco authorized surrogacy and in 2013 Sinaloa did, especially for married couples with medical impossibility. It is prohibited in Querétaro, San Luis Potosí and Coahuila. In Mexico City there was a project in 2019, which became known as “Law of Assisted Reproduction”.
From 2002 to 2016, at the federal level there have been attempts to legislate the issue at least 18 times, and the SCJN ruled in favor of the issue in 2015. The problem, he added, is that the initiatives presented in our country to regulate this process support those who contract the services, then the companies that intervene are respected, but the pregnant women are not well visualized, of whom it is only considered that they have the right to a contract.