In the surrogacy process, one of the primary procedures is a surrogacy contract.
In the surrogacy contract, a detailed description of the surrogacy journey along with the roles, responsibilities, and rights of each involved party before, during, and after conceiving are mentioned.
A comprehensive and detailed surrogacy contract can reduce the scope of misunderstandings and disputes.
The surrogacy contract is a legally accepted document and has the power to protect the right of the born child as well as intended parents and surrogates.
However, generating a surrogacy contract is not compulsory for every country, but most of the countries declared conduction of surrogacy without a surrogacy contract considered illegal.
Therefore, it is always better to create a surrogacy contract before starting the procedure.
Different elements in the Surrogacy contract
The surrogacy contract has different elements that one needs to understand in detail about agreeing on every point mentioned in the contract.
Law and regulation
The contract should be made based on the legal requirements mentioned in the current law and regulation.
This will ensure that the conduction of surrogacy follows all the legal requirements and protects parental rights, the agreed amount of cost involvement, and the different potential outcomes.
Medical consent
Medical consent comes under the law and regulation of surrogacy as it allows every involved party to know about the potential clinical risks and legal consequences related to surrogacy.
Both intended parents and surrogates give consent for medical screening tests to ensure that they are free from communicable diseases like AIDS, malaria, Zika virus infection, etc.
Financial expenditure
The financial expenditure details are mentioned in the surrogacy contract.
These include the financial obligations of every involved party.
Financial expenditure also contains details about the compensation and other benefits of surrogates for taking part in the surrogacy process.
Parental right
The contract specifies the legal authority to ensure the enforceability of the contract.
The surrogacy contract establishes the process and documentation required for parental rights.
Intended parents need to follow the established process mentioned in the contract to get legal of the born child.
The surrogacy contract also clearly mentions that the surrogate and her partner do not have the legal right to claim the parentage of the born child.
Rare or Unusual Outcomes
Surrogacy outcomes do not always meet expectations and cannot be solved through verbal communication.
It is always better to keep written communication for unusual consequences.
The surrogacy contract mentions the rare situation for selective reduction and termination.
For example, outlines of contact mention the action in case of an intended parent dies during the treatment period or the surrogate are placed on life support.
In such possible unusual incidences should be discussed and a solution for such incidence must be mentioned before the medical procedure start to conduct surrogacy.
The agreed decision of all the parties should also be mentioned in the surrogacy contract to reduce the dispute in the future.
Drafting a Surrogacy Contract
Before preparing the draft for the surrogacy contract both intended parents and surrogate should have their lawyer who has specialization in fertility law.
The lawyer of both parties checks the details mention in the contract and ensure they get impartial and equal representation of their interests.
The intended parents and their lawyer usually take the responsibility to draft the contract after a discussion with the surrogate in presence of her lawyer.
The final draft is sent to the lawyer of the surrogate for review.
The final agreement is prepared after completing all the negotiating terms and conditions.
After the settlement of the agreement, both intended parents and surrogates properly signed the contract to start the medical procedure.
The clinic also issued a letter for legal clearance which ensures that the necessary medical procedure should be started for embryo transfer to the assigned surrogate.
Therefore, a surrogacy contract is the most important step to conduct the surrogacy procedure.
Therefore, both intended parents and surrogates should thoroughly read the contract and negotiate before signing the contract.
Any discrepancy in the surrogacy contract can cause legal problems to involve parties.
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.