Public Service Development Agency explains issue of documenting children born through surrogacy
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Tuesday, September 17
A few parents of children born through surrogacy have been denied a birth certificate for two months now. These are about 20 foreign couples from the US, UK, Germany, Spain, Poland, Sweden, etc. The agency says it strongly urges medical clinics to fully comply with legislative requirements.
According to the statement, from September 9 to September 13 of this year, the Public Service Development Agency has registered the birth of 26 babies born through surrogacy in 8 different clinics of Georgia.
As the statement notes, for the purposes of effective protection of children’s rights and prevention of human trafficking crimes, each child born through surrogacy will be timely registered only after the respective clinic will fully provide the documents prescribed by the legislation, of which the above-mentioned clinic and its head were repeatedly informed both orally and in writing during the last few days.
“From 9 September through 13 September of this year, the Public Service Development Agency registered the birth of 26 children, born through surrogacy carried out by the foreign citizens, at 8 different clinics of Georgia. Those registrations were performed even though in each of those cases the clinics have violated certain simple rules in the field of surrogacy, established by the legislation. Based on the principle of protection of the best interests of the children who were already born, on 8 September 2019, the Minister of Justice of Georgia issued an order, according to which a transitional period was established and an agreement on surrogacy ‘concluded before implantation’, i.e. before the transfer of an embryo created as a result of fertilization into the body of a surrogate mother, was temporarily admitted as a surrogacy agreement ‘concluded before fertilization’,” reads the statement.
According to the Public Service Development Agency, even under the simplified rules, one private clinic still refuses to provide appropriate medical information and thus refuses the opportunity to receive birth registration documents for some clients.
In return, the agency says, the clinic and its chief are trying to mislead foreign clients and are wasting their time in protest to cover up their mistakes.
Without birth certificates, foreign nationals who have used surrogacy in Georgia cannot bring their children home. The Public Service Development Agency explains that they have violated the rules set out for the surrogacy process.
