German legislation on surrogate motherhood is uncompromising. In 1991, the Embryo Protection Act came into force, placing German reproductive medicine under strict control. It prohibits surrogacy per se and other medical practices that may lead to «improper» treatment of the incipient human life. This includes the deliberate fertilization of more than three eggs simultaneously, the fertilization of women intending to give up their unborn child for adoption, and egg donation (sperm donation is not prohibited, and sperm banks exist officially in Germany). Often, in an attempt to circumvent the strict prohibition of surrogacy in Germany, German couples turn to other countries where this type of reproduction is not prohibited.
Following the upper mentioned, here is illustrative statistics showing the demand for surrogacy services and prospective parents’ actual possibilities in Germany. Statistics on artificial conception:
So as you can see in Germany, not everything that technically possible is actually available. For that reason, aspiring parents travel abroad to find an affordable solution. While in America and Canada, those services are expensive, in Eastern European countries, including Georgia and Ukraine, this procedure is more budget-friendly. The best option is to address an international surrogacy agency, where the final price for the services already includes all required fees.
In Germany, all women are forbidden to use their wombs to carrying another couple’s baby to term. A couple dreaming of a child may go abroad, but the three of them are unlikely to return together. German law states that the mother is the woman who delivered the baby, not the one whose cells formed the basis of a new life. Neither genetic tests confirming the relationship between the biological mother and the child nor a foreign birth certificate issued to German officials are decreed. Basically, pregnancy is put over genetic connections. On top of that, Germany does not recognize a child born to a surrogate mother as its national, suggesting intended parents adopt their own child.
The LGBT community also faces challenges in building a family by non-traditional means. In Germany, they are even generally not allowed to adopt. The only ease in local jurisdictional rules is permission for gay men to adopt their partner’s children from an earlier relationship legally.
The only glimmer of hope appeared when a male same-sex couple in 2014 appealed to the German supreme court to recognize the child born via surrogate in California as theirs. Consequently, it was agreed to respect the decisions of foreign authorities upon surrogacy subject as «part of a child’s welfare to be able to rely on the parents to have continuous responsibility for its well-being.»
Surrogacy in Germany remains strictly prohibited. While for intended parents from other countries, surrogacy abroad is one of the options, here it is the only chance to build a family. For German childless singles and couples, it is not a matter of money but the matter of standing for their rights to experience the joy of parenthood.
