«Limping Legal Parentage» as a Result of Cross-Border Surrogacy

Abstract

The reproductive technologies are constantly developing but the regulation is partly too slow and partly stuck in ethical issues connected with the application thereof. We also face some extra diffculties when resorting to cross-border surrogacy, it arises as we have to coordinate two legal systems in order to recognise a child̕s legal status. It̕s where we are in peril of the «limping legal parentage» problem. Another difficulty is connected with filiation process as long as neither of filiation principles is applicable automatically to give the child citizenship of intended parents. Current pande-mic COVID-19 situation also adds some uncertainties. The reason thereof lies in the limited access to the country where the surrogate mother has her domicile due to state anti-pandemic measures. Some countries having faced the problem adopted a system of exclusive licenses allowing to cross their border after or short before the child is born, the others are thinking of putting a ban on cross-border surrogacy due to great numbers of abandoned children. The goal of the article is to determine main problems connected with cross-border surrogacy and «limping legal parentage», i. e. denial to recognise intended genetic parents as legal parents. The authors see as such problems the following: great differences among national surrogacy regula-tions, especially cross-border surrogacy, potential bans on cross-border surrogacy, filiation dificulties, finding balance between child̕s interests protection and non-promotion of breach of legal bans on surrogacy. To sum up there is a great urgency to introduce some united international regulation. Partly the problem can be solved by the Hague Conference on Private International Law.