Protection of the rights of children born with surrogate mothers (contractual regulation)
Authors: Nadion V. V. 
Published: May 2022

In connection with the deterioration of reproductive health (women and men) or other reasons not related to the health of the couple, with the emergence of new methods of overcoming infertility, experts talked about the prospect of forming a fourth generation of human rights while preserving the reproductive health of the nation. One of the types of assisted reproductive technologies is surrogacy. Today, this species is very popular, which is used by married couples.
Statistics show that this method is usually used by foreign nationals (married couples), in whose countries either surrogacy is completely prohibited, or this method is expensive, or in order to hide the delivery and birth of another child. Therefore, Ukraine is the country where commercial surrogacy is allowed, the country where it takes place is available in financial terms and the subsequent procedure is minimized in time. Accordingly, it is these factors that attract foreign elements to choose a woman from Ukraine who carries and gives birth to a child on an equivalent basis.
The basis of these legal relations are contractual legal relations, which relate to contracts aimed at providing services, namely medical services. Under the surrogacy agreement, the surrogate mother (performer) agrees that the embryo of the married couple (customer) will be implanted in her body and thus assumes the obligation to bear and give birth to a child, and the customer undertakes to pay all agreed costs. Costs are divided into two types. These are: 1) costs associated with the normal course of pregnancy (proper nutrition, accommodation, treatment, medical examination, medical tests, etc.) and 2) costs associated with the remuneration of the surrogate mother (performer) for proper performance of her duties. related to the proper delivery and birth of a child. All this must be spelled out in detail in the contract so that in the future there are no unnecessary problems. Thus, with the consent of the woman to become a surrogate mother, from that moment on she is entrusted exclusively with the responsibilities set out in the contract and which she must perform properly. If the surrogate mother will perform her duties improperly, she will not receive the remuneration specified in the terms of the contract. As for the customer (married couple), they have a single obligation to pay all the stipulated costs. However, it is also worth noting the obligation of genetic parents to give birth to a child and to protect children born to surrogate mothers who have been abandoned by their genetic parents (or have not come to pick them up in the country where they were born). In this aspect, the protection of the rights of children born to surrogate mothers needs scientific and practical attention, defining not only the responsibilities of such mothers but also in certain cases and rights, as well as certain additional responsibilities imposed on genetic parents (customers ) regarding the material maintenance of the child from which they refused for certain or unspecified reasons.