Cells are ordered to be divided – Kommersant Kazan

The Parliament of Tatarstan proposed to liberalize the legislation on surrogate motherhood. Since the end of last year, only those couples who have provided their own germ cells for in vitro fertilization (IVF) can use this service. However, as the State Council points out, families where one of the spouses is infertile were excluded from the surrogate motherhood program. The regional parliament has drafted a bill that allows only one potential parent to be genetically related to the embryo in such cases. According to State Duma deputy Ayrat Farrakhov, the lower house will be ready to support any proposals related to increasing the birth rate, only if they do not lead to “trafficking in children.” However, the Children’s Ombudsman of Tatarstan, Irina Volynets, believes that such an initiative “may become a loophole in order to take our children abroad.”

The State Council of Tatarstan sent to the Council of Legislators at the Federal Assembly a draft amendment to the federal law “On the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Citizens in the Russian Federation”. The document proposes to include in Article 55 “Use of assisted reproductive technologies” a new paragraph 9.1, which will allow the use of donor material (oocytes or sperm) in surrogate motherhood to obtain an embryo.

We are talking only about those cases when one of the potential parents, for medical reasons, cannot provide their own germ cells.

“In this case, the embryo will have a genetic relationship only with one of the potential parents (genetic mother or genetic father) who was able to provide their germ cells,” the explanatory note to the bill says.

The authors of the initiative remind that at the end of 2022, changes were already made to the federal law. Then the State Duma deputies banned the services of surrogate mothers in Russia for foreigners and single men. This opportunity remained only for married couples, where one of the potential parents is a citizen of the Russian Federation, or for single Russian women. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin explained that the new law would prevent child trafficking: “to protect babies from situations where they fall into same-sex couples or become victims of crimes, including sales for organs.”

With the same amendments, the deputies clarified that when using surrogate motherhood, only the genetic mother and genetic father can be potential parents, that is, who provided their germ cells to receive the embryo.

However, the State Council of Tatarstan, as stated in the explanatory note to the bill, “receives appeals from citizens concerned about the refusal of medical organizations … to participate in the surrogacy program for married couples in which one of the partners cannot provide their own sex cells for objective reasons.”

In particular, we are talking about cases where a woman has such diagnoses as “infertility of uterine origin (ICD10 – N97.2)” and “infertility associated with the absence of ovulation (ICD10 – N97.0)”. The State Council emphasizes that here “the only possible option to overcome infertility is a surrogacy program using donor oocytes.”

In addition, the parliament of the republic states that “there is an acute problem with patients who have already undergone an IVF procedure using donor material in order to obtain embryos (which are currently cryopreserved) and were at the stage of selecting a surrogate mother.” “Currently, the use of these embryos seems impossible: they are subject to destruction, and such married couples may forever lose the opportunity to have children,” the initiators of the bill say.

In their opinion, the ban on patients who do not have their own germ cells and the ability to bear a child, “to treat infertility by IVF and surrogacy” contradicts another norm of the federal law, according to which “the state guarantees citizens protection from any form of discrimination, due to the presence of any or diseases.”

The State Council of Tatarstan adds that “at present, unfortunately, many healthy couples, due to circumstances, deliberately refuse to have children.” “At the same time, patients suffering from infertility, for the sake of having a child, are ready to undergo serious treatment and bear financial costs. It should be noted that the effectiveness of surrogate motherhood and oocyte donation programs is at least 80 percent, and sometimes it can be not one child, but two or three,” the explanatory note says.

The document proposes that the procedure and conditions for the use of donor material (donor oocytes or donor sperm) be determined by the government of the Russian Federation “in order to avoid abuse.”

Kommersant-Kazan failed to get comments from the State Council of Tatarstan yesterday: the deputies of the republic are on parliamentary vacation. The press service could not clarify for Kommersant-Kazan which of the deputies specifically initiated the bill.

The Council of Legislators has not yet issued its opinion on the bill. At the same time, there are comments on the document by the right department of the State Duma apparatus.

Alexei Kurinny (KPRF), Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection, told Kommersant-Kazan that he supported the proposal of the Tatarstan parliament.

Last week, he himself submitted a similar initiative to the lower house, proposing to allow the use of germ cells of one of the spouses for IVF (when, according to a medical opinion, the cells of the second cannot be used). “The arguments are the same: to give families the opportunity to have children,” the deputy said. He added that indeed “many of these couples already have embryos, they are preserved”, now they cannot be used for surrogate motherhood.

“The State Duma will consider all options that are aimed at ensuring that families, especially those where it is not possible due to medical problems to have a child, can use modern technologies,” the State Duma deputy from Tatarstan, former Minister of Health of the Republic Airat told Kommersant-Kazan Farrakhov. At the same time, he stressed that “the State Duma is categorically against any business around this area – child trafficking.” In this regard, according to him, the draft law of the State Council of Tatarstan “needs to be studied in more detail.”

Irina Volynets, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Tatarstan, believes that such a bill “can be used as a loophole by those who intend to take children born in Russia abroad.”

“Including those with bad intentions – for pedophiles, for the LGBT community … right up to transplantology,” she explains. According to Mrs. Volynets, this will become possible if “a foreigner or a foreigner enters into a fictitious marriage with our citizen.” “If both parents are genetic, this is a completely different status,” she believes.

Ms. Volynets added that “the priority is the child’s right to be brought up in a birth family and prevent possible problems.” “The law that both parents in surrogate motherhood must be genetic did not appear out of nowhere, but as a result of the trafficking of our Russian children abroad, proven by the investigating authorities and the court,” she said. According to the Ombudsman, the bill “should be adopted taking into account the interests of the majority, since the return of the export of children abroad may again become a mass problem.”

Irina Volynets admits that “conscientious barren families are now suffering as a result.” “I sincerely sympathize with everyone who fails to become genetic parents, this is really a tragedy,” says the children’s ombudsman. She advises those parents who cannot use surrogacy to adopt children. Irina Volynets emphasized that cases when embryos were created using donor cells (and now they cannot be used by law) are not massive (at least no one has addressed the Ombudsman with such complaints). “For those who had embryos before the law came into force, an exception should still be made and these children should be given the opportunity to be born,” Irina Volynets concluded.

Kirill Antonov