The pandemic effect of coronavirus creates chaos in reproductive tourism and surrogacy treatment. Intended parents who have already opted for cross broader reproductive traveling for surrogacy service after mid of 2019, faced tremendous pressure, as the sealing of international broader cannot stop or delay the expecting date of the birth of the child in the current situation. This is high time to get a realistic solution for providing safeguards to the children who are born through a cross broader surrogacy system.
The surrogacy industry needs to take action in the following matters:
Traveling arrangements and issuance of passports for neonates who are born through international surrogacy.
We have been working urgently with parents this weekend who have just had newborn babies born through surrogacy in the USA and have unexpectedly found themselves stuck overseas. Most countries are close to passport applications for all persons along with travel restrictions due to the risk of spreading infection and complications of medical insurance.
In this situation, the surrogacy industry needs to work beyond its described job in this crisis period and helps the intended parents to bring their babies safely to their homes. Surrogacy industry help to put the application to the local authorities and push the government of the respective countries to consider these cases as an urgent basis to bring the newborns safely to their homes.
Many surrogacy service centers have already started their active participation to bring the newborns who have been born through surrogacy in the USA, Canada, Georgia, Ukraine, or elsewhere.
Both the surrogacy industry and intended parents are worrying about the expected deliveries in the coming few months, as the government lockdown policies and cancellation of the flights are frequently changing. Therefore, before due dates, both the surrogacy industry and the intended need to work together to find the way new travel restrictions.
Following is some advice necessary for upcoming international surrogacy births depending upon how soon the due date of child delivery is recommended:
Search any local friends or family members who are ready to take an emergency guardianship authority in absence of intended parents and deposit the emergency guardianship authority document to the officials of the respective countries and legal departments.
Keep an eye on travel restriction details and search for all the possible ways to navigate the, at the correct moment.
Take the information about the routes to bring the neonates at the home as early as possible after the birth of the child. In case of any possibility to apply any new emergency procedures which fit the situation need should be implemented accordingly.
Need to take proper measures to ensure the complete protection of the born child in case of any mishap happens with the intended parents due to coronavirus infection.
Surrogacy service providers should maintain regular contact with the intended parents and surrogates and continue to act as a bridge between them. This responsibility is not only for a surrogacy agency but also a duty of intended parents and surrogate to maintain regular communication during the coronavirus pandemic condition because may in certain cases surrogacy agency unable to track the regular communication record with their clients due to a lack of human resource in this current lockdown condition.
Many countries started remote court hearings to provide an immediate effect on the present lockdown condition. The surrogacy agency and reproductive care unit should help intended parents with the application of parental order during this Covid-19 outbreak.
This path may not be very smooth as in normal conditions. Therefore, intended parents should be mentally prepared to take the challenges they may face during this coronavirus pandemic condition. Surrogacy agencies can help to get the hearing list as early as possible and guide the intended parents to follow the steps for a remote hearing for a parental order by providing legal counseling.
Intended parents need to do their research by internet searching and taking information from different authentic sources on International surrogacy law services, travel guidance, parental orders, and navigating the coronavirus crisis.
Reference:
https://www.ngalaw.co.uk/blog/2020/03/23/international-surrogacy-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
Ravi Sharma is a self-motivated, successful entrepreneur and has a solid experience in the fertility segment. and he is the director at ARTbaby Global (ARThealthcare). He is a pharmacy graduate with post-graduation in business administration and has 14 years of rich experience in the field of infertility segment. He loves to write about IVF, Surrogacy, and other ART (assisted reproductive technology) news, issues, and updates. He is a Pharmacy graduate (B. Pharm) and M.B.A (marketing).
His most recent success includes the successful launch of the medical tourism company, ARTbaby, which offers treatment options for infertility, egg donation, and surrogacy. He likes spending time with his family and writing about various aspects of IVF surrogacy and donating eggs.