Surrogacy endured by officials – Newspaper Kommersant No. 216 (7417) dated 11/22/2022

The bill to ban surrogate motherhood in Russia has caused unexpected resistance from officials, including those in the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. This was stated by the Vice-Speaker of the State Duma, one of the authors of the initiative, Pyotr Tolstoy. Speaking about the comments received by parliamentarians from the federal executive authorities, the politician suggested that by putting forward “far-fetched arguments”, lobbyists of this method of “trafficking in children” receive material benefits. However, Mr. Tolstoy expressed confidence that “no nit-picking of various officials directly interested in this” will stop the deputies. Another author of the initiative, Vice-Speaker of the State Duma Anna Kuznetsova, explained the need to adopt the bill, including the revealed facts of the activities of biolaboratories in Ukraine. Former State Duma deputy Inga Yumasheva, in this regard, called for a moratorium on “cross-border movement of tissues, objects and liquids of citizens of the Russian Federation.”

Petr Tolstoy explained the decision to hold a press conference on the eve of the second reading of the bill banning surrogate motherhood in Russia as follows: society should know “how, who and how puts spokes into the wheels of the bill on child trafficking.” The document was submitted to the State Duma in December last year, and in May 2022 it was unanimously adopted in the first reading. However, later, said Mr. Tolstoy, the authors received a number of comments from the federal executive authorities “with far-fetched arguments.” Among them, he noted, there are “certainly useful ones,” but there is also a “whole group” of those who are designed to “drag out the process.” “About 300 companies are engaged in this business [в России]. The turnover is estimated at €2 billion per year. And accordingly, this business has quite extensive lobbying opportunities,” he said. “I will not hide the fact that lobbyists for this kind of child trafficking are in the executive authorities and in other very high-ranking places. People, apparently, receive some kind of material profit from the fact that Russia is a factory for the sale of children.

Petr Tolstoy recalled that the deputies took up this problem when, during the pandemic, “whole farms” were discovered in Moscow with babies born by surrogate mothers who did not have time or could not be taken abroad. In January 2020, recall, in one of the Moscow apartments, the police found a dead baby along with four other children, a nanny and a surrogate mother. The children were born at the European Surrogacy Center and were waiting for their biological parents to take them to the Philippines.

Persons involved in the case of human trafficking were employees of the Rosyurconsulting company, which provided legal support for surrogacy programs, as well as doctors and two women who carried children (one is a citizen of Ukraine).

In total, according to the FSB, over the past few years, about 45,000 such children have been taken out of Russia. Mr. Tolstoy warned: there is evidence that some of them are taken out for organs, some – for adoption by homosexual couples.

The deputies called for a complete ban on the participation of foreign citizens in surrogacy programs in Russia. The bill developed by them assumes that only married Russians or a single woman with Russian citizenship can become potential recipients of surrogate mother services (necessarily Russian women), if the bearing and birth of a child is impossible for medical reasons. In addition, the document states that children born in this way should automatically become citizens of the Russian Federation.

However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice of Russia oppose granting citizenship to a child born from a surrogate mother, a citizen of the Russian Federation on the territory of our country, Petr Tolstoy admitted.

According to him, the Foreign Ministry believes that the situation of children taken abroad should be determined by the norms of the state of their permanent residence. “But the task is still to ensure that such children have the opportunity to be protected by the Russian state,” Mr. Tolstoy insisted. The Ministry of Justice, he noted, proposes to “comprehensively” solve “the entire” problem of surrogate motherhood in Russia and, the authors of the bill are sure, thus postpone the ban on business with foreigners.

According to the speaker, the deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, who was not named by Mr. Tolstoy, asked himself the question: why ban surrogate motherhood in Russia if it is allowed in the USA?

And a number of colleagues “from the legal department” (without specifying which department) behind the scenes advise “not to deal with this issue now.” In the end, Peter Tolstoy came to the conclusion that the current situation is shameful, and Russia is “worse than the colonies of Western countries”, where the possibility of bearing children in this way is still legally enshrined.

Anna Kuznetsova fully supported Mr. Tolstoy: “It has been established that the main consumers of surrogacy services are citizens of countries where it is prohibited. We understand with you, yes, how they treat Russia.” She noted that legalized surrogate motherhood violates the rights not only of children born by surrogate mothers from foreigners, but also “our rights with you, our children with you.” “Dear colleagues, 14 billion from our budget goes to pay for surrogate childbirth services for foreigners,” she said, without specifying what kind of expenses she was talking about. Anna Kuznetsova also urged not to forget that the State Duma is currently working on the topic of biological laboratories found in Ukraine. “So it is the Slavic genotype that is the basis of these experiments on people. And you and I can imagine what these children can be used for,” she insisted. “By talking about this bill, we are protecting everyone. Well, of course, our moral human self-awareness.”

However, ex-State Duma deputy Inga Yumasheva opened up the topic of biological weapons more widely: “In my opinion, the moment has come when we need to declare a moratorium on the cross-border movement of tissues, objects and liquids of citizens of the Russian Federation, especially in the context of a special military operation, when we we still do not fully understand the threats posed by various biolaboratories.”

Journalist Anna Shafran demanded that the draft law banning surrogate motherhood be treated as a companion of another initiative – a ban on LGBT propaganda.

Priest Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Patriarchal Commission on Family Affairs, Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, for his part, confirmed that “completely immoral things” are happening: representatives of the LGBT community are “systematically” registered as patients in these clinics, whose medical records indicate that they belong to the female sex diagnosed with congenital absence of the uterus. Father Fedor remembered the owner of a large perfume company in the Philippines, who, without hiding his LGBT affiliation, received parental rights for six Russian children and took them out of the country. “And what will happen to them? he asked, and he himself answered for all those gathered: – We perfectly understand the purposes for which children are acquired. In fact, it is, of course, child trafficking. Not only a child is bought, but also the health and reproductive potential of our Russian, Russian women. Only a colony can send its children to foreign countries.”

Concluding his speech, Petr Tolstoy expressed confidence that in the very near future foreigners would be banned from using surrogate motherhood programs in Russia. He recalled that the parliament is the highest legislative body of the Russian Federation, and “no cavils of various officials directly interested in this” will stop the deputies. “We will adopt this law,” Mr. Tolstoy promised.

Natalia Kostarnova