‘Being a channel that makes life easier’: Colombia seeks to regulate surrogacy

By our correspondent in Medellín, Najet Benrabaa.

The debate about mothers who rent their wombs is very present in the Colombian media. Every new bill released or every debate in Congress is the subject of reports.

The subject is delicate. Sitting in the garden of a café, far from prying eyes and ears, a nurse recounts her experience. We call her Patricia to guarantee her anonymity. This mother of two was also a surrogate mother three times.

“The first time I went through this process was because I worked as a nurse in a fertility clinic where I met a Spanish couple who had problems having children. They had already tried everything,” he told RFI.

Patricia traveled to Madrid and lived there with the couple “because they wanted to keep an eye on me all the time: every control, every ultrasound, that I take the necessary medications and the hormones they required.”

This decision was not easy. Patricia was worried about the reaction of her relatives. She avoided mentioning the real reason for her trip, saying it was for work. “Later I told them and there were disagreements because here there is absolute ignorance about the subject and a lot of prejudice, because they are very conservative people,” she recalls. However, her relatives ended up supporting her. “Especially my mother, who took care of my children every time I was hospitalized to carry out the surrogate pregnancy process.”

“Giving life to those who cannot have children is a quality that I have. I feel that this is my purpose on this earth, to be a channel that makes life easier for others”, explains Patricia.

read alsoWhat future for surrogate motherhood in Colombia?

Between 3,700 and 5,600 euros

Like Patricia, according to the Association of Reproductive Health Centers, more than 400 Colombian women become surrogate mothers each year.

70% of the cases are registered in Bogota. The cities of Cali, Medellín and Barranquilla share the remaining 30%.

“Fertility clinics do not provide you with the list of women because the clinics deny that they do this process. So the issue of data is super difficult,” says Angélica Bernal, a psychologist and researcher with a master’s degree in Bioethics from the Javeriana University of Bogotá. She researched this burgeoning market in Colombia posing as both a manager candidate and a support candidate.

In Colombia, the average cost of a surrogate mother ranges between 3,700 and 5,600 euros. In North America it would be 10 times more expensive.

The common point of all the women that Bernal has known continues to be their need for money. “In many situations they do this to settle debts they have, to pay for their university studies because they cannot cover them. Mothers, heads of families who must do this practice to meet the needs of their children. They are women between 20 and 30 years old and mothers who have at least one child ”, he has been able to observe.

Many voices are raised against the use of surrogate mothers. María Cristina Hurtado even wants to prohibit this practice. This lawyer, a political scientist from the National University, is a defender of the rights of women, children and adolescents.

“If you have the resources and you have the desires, then it is enough to buy or rent human beings. In this way, the rights of women are relativized. Criminal law has two articles, 188A and 188C, which talk about human trafficking and the trafficking of children and adolescents. These behaviors are assumed by clinics and can be adapted to these crimes ”, he details.

“Both in Italy and in France or Spain it is prohibited, and it is punished,” says Hurtado. According to her, Mexico, Colombia and many Latin American countries have become “the perfect market for buying children.” “Because behind this there is a lobby where doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers, etc. participate, who normalize this situation,” she denounces.

16 projects in Congress

For the moment, the bills presented to Congress propose, for example, the end of the commercial practice of surrogate mothers, the limitation of the number of pregnancies, the prohibition of the use of surrogate mothers for foreigners.

“My surrogate motherhood project consists of several elements,” explains Alejandro Ocampo, a representative of the House of Representatives of the ruling Pacto Histórico coalition, to RFI. “The first thing is not to allow women to be enslaved to reproduce and make Colombia a child factory for the world. The second thing is that those children who come into the world through this practice fall into the hands of good families, that we know in whose hands they are”. His project is addressed only to nationals and couples who have declared a marital union, declared before a notary.

In his bill, before allowing the use of surrogate mothers, Ocampo wants to highlight the adoption of Colombian orphans. “Couples will have to attend the Colombian Family Welfare Institute and meet the children that are available or in the process of adoption,” she says.

He also claims that under some control “there is no ethical problem.” “Imagine that a couple cannot have children and the sister of one of the two offers to have her niece born in her womb. It is not an ethical problem. The problem is that they want to return it to business”.

In his bill, the leftist deputy wants to guarantee respect for the rights of surrogate mothers, with the aim of avoiding the exploitation of Colombian women. “It is a free exercise of the person,” emphasizes Ocampo.

It is not the first time that the debate on surrogate mothers has been controversial in Colombia. In recent years, 16 bills have been submitted to Congress. None have been approved.