Ukraine: Surrogacy as Human Reproductive Procedure

Ukraine’s changing ART landscape offers medical opportunities and ethical debates around IVF, AI, and surrogacy. These technologies address Ukrainian and European couples’ rising infertility rates, but scientists, religious groups, and policymakers argue about women’s rights, exploitation, and ethics. The state balances reproductive autonomy with medical control, especially for Family Code maternal/paternal rights. Reproductive rights legislation is lacking. Critics say surrogacy and gamete donation markets require stricter protections against exploitation, while current policies emphasise informed consent and medical ethics. Ukraine’s assisted reproductive technology (ART) sector operates within a carefully regulated medical framework yet faces significant regulatory gaps that require urgent attention. While the country maintains strict clinic accreditation standards mandating at least two years of operational experience and proper technological capabilities for ART providers, several critical areas remain underregulated. The surrogacy industry, though legally recognised under the Family, Civil Code and Ministry of Health Order No. 787, lacks comprehensive oversight mechanisms to prevent potential exploitation and ensure ethical practices across all surrogacy arrangements. Ukraine’s legal system currently fails to clearly define reproductive rights in primary legislation, creating ambiguity around fundamental issues like access, consent, and governmental limits on reproductive autonomy. In Ukraine, there are legal restrictions that only recognise heterosexual married couples as eligible for treatments like surrogacy. The absence of a centralised donor tracking system presents risks of genetic material misuse and complicates long-term health monitoring for donorconceived individuals. These regulatory shortcomings persist despite Ukraine’s otherwise progressive stance on ART technologies, including the full legalisation of IVF, intrauterine insemination, and preimplantation genetic testing. The growing international demand for Ukrainian surrogacy services and increasing domestic infertility rates underscore the pressing need for legal reforms that would establish proper safeguards, expand access rights, and implement robust monitoring systems while maintaining the country’s position as a regional leader in reproductive medicine. Current legislative proposals aim to address some of these gaps, particularly concerning surrogacy oversight and data protection, but fail to comprehensively tackle issues of discrimination in access or establish clear reproductive rights frameworks that would bring Ukraine in line with international human rights standards and modern medical ethics practices.