translated from Spanish: Morena proposes to regulate surrogate pregnancy

in Mexico are practiced annually more than 80 thousand procedures of assisted human reproduction, including surrogate pregnancy. These techniques are performed in more than 100 settlements, of which only 52 have authorization for this activity, according to data from the Federal Commission for the protection against sanitary risks (COFEPRIS).
The Centers operate in the absence of a specific federal legislation on the subject, which has given rise to establishments that offer human reproduction assisted “in accordance with the highest international standards of medical and ethical” as the IMSS, the ISSSTE and the National Institute of Perinatology, coexist with others “that barely meet the minimum characteristics to operate”, warns an initiative on assisted human reproduction presented by Morena in the Senate in recent days.
In the past six years the technique of surrogate pregnancy, in particular, has led to a series of allegations of feminist organizations and reproductive rights of women, such as Mexican feminists against bellies of rental (FEMMVA) and reproduction chosen information group (turn), violation of the human rights of the parties involved, both intentional parents and pregnant women, and even of the newborns product of the procreation.
Reported practices include the absence of informed consent; the imposition of clauses to control various aspects of the lives of the women who act as pregnant, as food, sexual activity and sleep; the imposition of hormone treatments to increase the likelihood of pregnancy, that jeopardize the health of the pregnant woman; the imposition of hormonal treatments for eugenic purposes; the limitation or imposition of legal interruption of pregnancy, and up to the obligation to register to the newborn child as the mother and then giving it up for adoption to circumvent legislation prohibiting pregnancy surrogate with foreign contracts.
These allegations have opened a debate on how to solve the problem. TURN has lobbied so federal authorities regulate assisted human reproduction techniques through reforms to the General health law allowing surrogate pregnancy, as a recognition of the right to autonomy of women. At the other end are organizations of feminist women as FEMMVA, who have denounced the practice as “a business where women rent and sold babies to the detriment of poor women”.
In the midst of this debate have been presented from various 2012 initiatives in Congress have sought to ban the practice and one, the most recent, which rightly seeks to regulate assisted human reproduction techniques. This initiative, presented on 20 November by the then Senator Olga Sánchez Cordero, current Secretary of Interior, gives rise to regular pregnancy surrogate, permitted so far only in Tabasco and Sinaloa, and expressly prohibited in Coahuila and Queretaro. In the rest of the country there is no legislation in this regard.
The debate is compounded by the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Justice of the nation, that the past 21 November ruled in favor of a same-sex couple a judge in Yucatan refused to those who covered so the Registrar of that entity granted an ac TA’s birth to his son, conceived from a contract of surrogate pregnancy. The Court recognized the procreational will of the couple, and their right to access the advances of science in the field of assisted reproduction and become parents through these techniques.
This requires that, regardless of that there is no federal regulation on the matter, the civil codes of the States considered “procreational will” of those who have access to a surrogate pregnancy agreement and register as a legal son to the newborn product of that pregnancy. Just what you deny the civil codes of Coahuila and Querétaro.
Son of my daughter, my grandson since in 1974, article 4 of the Constitution was amended to incorporate the right of every person to decide in a free, responsible and informed on the number and spacing of their children, are available in Mexico several techniques of human assisted reproduction, including ovulation induction, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, the transfer of fertilized eggs, fertilized eggs or gametes intrafallopian transfer, Cryopreservation of egg and fertilized eggs, and the donation of oocytes and fertilized eggs.
Pregnancy surrogate as a technique of assisted human reproduction exists in the country for 20 years. However, it was until 2012 which his practice began to increase due to legal changes in India and Thailand – then international destinations of surrogate pregnancy – which imposed restrictions on foreigners and same-sex couples, and that they became to Mexico the option for this kind of contracts with women who accepted to take shape for a person or couple, altruistically or through compensation.
Thus Tabasco became the destination for individuals or couples from other countries seeking to become parents through surrogate pregnancy, until in 2016 was amended its Civil Code to limit the use of this technique exclusively to Mexican How Sinaloa sets it from the beginning. The main problem which has led to this reform is the difficulty faced by now people and foreign couples to register as their own newborn baby product of the surrogate pregnancy agreement they signed before the legal change, and that it has led to that pregnant women being forced by the agencies to sign the creature to then give it up for adoption, the legal uncertainty that this creates for all involved.
For FEMMVA, “deny delivery as a clear signal of maternity is a throwback to the times in which the determining factor in a new human being was the genetic contribution of the man; the woman was hardly a single vessel, a place of transit. “This stance, moreover, not taking into account that an infant newly born no matter where come the egg: mother is the woman who conceived it and gave birth it”.
In a statement released on their social networks, the group lists 25 reasons to ban surrogate pregnancy, notably that surrogacy lends itself to trafficking in persons and is contrary to the exercise of the freedom of choice for women . “Take shape and stand to others is not a right (…) women who are hired as pregnant mothers are in economic precariousness, due to a lack of genuine job opportunities that ensure them a living wage with which to cover their basic needs. When the alternative is poverty or the constant lack of resources, the election is not free”.
They also argue that “those seeking to legalize the sale of wombs are not impoverished women, but the intermediary companies, which are located in the countries of the third world a juicy business. That legalization does not would promote the well-being of women but the gain of a few entrepreneurs”.
To turn, the argument is exactly the opposite: “assisted reproduction is an advancement of the fundamental science to be able to exercise the right of all persons to found a family, as well as their reproductive autonomy,” and pregnancy surrogate, as assisted human reproduction technique “can help people to exercise their right to form a family with the number of children and spacing who wish to”, as establishes it the article 4th Constitution and international treaties to which Mexico is party.
“Criminalizing the Act of surrogate pregnancy to consider a form of trafficking in persons means starting from the assumption that women are not able to decide on their own if they want to develop the product of another person; It means you assume there is always abuse and coercion, and not a free exercise of rights”.
TURN says that while there is no legislation in general assisted human reproduction techniques, “legal uncertainty will allow abuses to persons involved in the processes of surrogate pregnancy, unprotected for the medical staff to “to intervene and even human rights violations of the newborn under these techniques”.
Son of my son, who knows?
The initiative presented by the then-Senator and current Secretary of Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero, is not the first attempt to legislate with respect to assisted human reproduction techniques, but it is the first recognized that the State must guarantee the access to services of human assisted reproduction as a way of protecting people’s right to found a family, to equality and non-discrimination, to health, and to benefit from scientific progress.
“When the permanent constituent Assembly adopted this reform 40 years ago, surely he could imagine that the science was going to move to give rise to assisted human reproduction; However, editorially sound, left open the door to make access to those services in a law.
“Today we can say that free reproductive decision enshrined in the Mexican Constitution does not exclusively imply the guarantee of access to family planning (…) schemes “but that also includes the obligation of the State to promote relation so that all persons have access to the necessary mechanisms to exercise its right to procreation, including assisted human reproduction services”, emphasizes the explanatory statement for the initiative.
In that sense, it is considered that none of the previous initiatives prospered due to “the prevalence of purely ideological approaches seeking to contradict the facts comprobados by science and its method (e. g. as to give legal status to an embryo) “and by applying” discriminatory arguments that exclude the benefits all those people with sexual preferences than heterosexuality or not is “” are United in figures such as marriage or concubinage”.
With the aim of guaranteeing this right, the document warns that regulation is required before the risk that pregnant women are particularly.
“According to data obtained by turn, the Federal Commission for the protection against sanitary risks (COFEPRIS) recognized that there were 52 approved establishments in Mexico to apply techniques of assisted reproduction in 2013.” However, other data indicate that operate more than 100, which suggests, first, that the number may be higher, and second, that many of them work without sticking to the general regulation which has referred previously (general regulation applicable to services of) obstetrics and handling of tissues and cells) “as well as”to play with the legitimate desire of people to be able to achieve a pregnancy and the fact of put your life in danger”.
Sánchez Cordero initiative proposes to reform the General Law of health and was customs for analysis to United Health, and second Legislative Studies committees, opinion of the Committee of the rights of children and adolescents. You only need the majority of the parliamentary group of the Morena to be approved.

Original source in Spanish