Favourable laws together with highly qualified and equipped assisted reproductive technology (ART) clinics, in addition to affordable prices and convenience to travel, made Ukraine one of the prime destinations in Europe for ART treatment, donor conception, and commercial surrogacy. ArsLegem’s lawyers assist intended parents coming to Ukraine from other countries with all legal aspects of their journey to parenthood via assisted reproductive technology.
Legal support with enrolment formalities
Each new patient of an ART clinic is required to submit certain documents and sign consent forms, established by Ukrainian law. In case of foreign intended parents, such documents shall be supported by a certified translation into Ukrainian language and in some cases shall be apostilled. We will assist you with putting together a comprehensive set of documents before your first visit to a clinic and, in most cases, will be able to arrange a bilingual consent forms and agreements, making sure that you waste no time for formalities and may fully concentrate on your treatment, while making a fully informed decisions.
Legal support with oocytes donation
Oocytes (egg) donation in Ukraine is available for both married couples and single women. Social freezing of oocytes is permitted by law, as is sex selection of embryos (for medical reasons only). Testing such as PGS or PGD is also available to patients. All oocyte donors are subject to the strict screening for both infectious and genetic diseases, in line with requirements of Ukrainian law.
Ukrainian law does not explicitly require a written contract with oocytes donor and, normally, in case of a pre-screened anonymous donor offered by a clinic, a couple of consent forms shall be enough to satisfy all legal requirements. Nevertheless, in case you decide to choose an open donor or a donor matched by an agency, we will help you with a customised donor agreement, where you may regulate such areas as:
- whether and how intended parents will remunerate the donor;
- how intended parents will cover all associated medical expenses;
- donor’s obligations to strictly follow all requirements of the doctor;
- scope and volume of information disclosed by the donor;
- confidentiality;
- provisions in relation to any future communications;
- other provisions that you may find important to regulate.
Such approach will ensure that all parties are duly protected and no important details are overlooked in this intimate and very important relationship between intended parents and donor.
Legal support with surrogacy arrangements
Ukrainian law allows both altruistic and commercial surrogacy. In order to qualify, the intended parents shall be an officially married heterosexual couple with medical reasons to undertake such treatment. Furthermore, only a gestational surrogacy (e.g. when a child has no genetic link to the surrogate mother) with use of own or donated oocytes is allowed.
In case of surrogacy arrangement our legal services will include:
- drafting a customised bilingual agreement between intended parents and a gestational carrier (surrogate mother);
- negotiating the draft agreement with intended parents and gestational carrier;
- coordinating the agreement with Ukrainian notary and taking care of the signing arrangements.
We will also make sure that the agreement contains all necessary provisions that will allow you to apply to your embassy for a travel documents for the child after the birth, and also covers any extended obligations of the surrogate mother in relation to embassy formalities (if required). We may also assist you with any specific contractual arrangements with the clinic, agency, etc.
Legal support with formalities after the birth
Both intended parents are indicated in the Ukrainian birth certificate as the child’s parents and there is no need under Ukrainian law to receive any additional parental court orders, etc. Consequently, many service providers will leave you to your own devices at this point, forgetting that usually there is an additional challenge for intended parents related to obtaining travel documents for their new-born in order to safely and legally return home with the child. Moreover, in many jurisdictions, especially European ones, certain additional legal actions are required after you return home. For example, your embassy may indicate a surrogate mother as a child’s mother in the documents and additional second parent court adoption procedure will be required in your country to duly establish parental rights. Our approach is different. We never leave this important part of work for later, making sure that no bureaucratic formalities (either with Ukrainian authorities, or with your home country embassy) will spoil the happy moments of the first days of your parenthood, when the time comes.
Our legal services include:
- early review and analysis of the requirements of your home country’s consulate/embassy in relation to issuance of travel documents for the baby;
- making sure that all Ukrainian legal documents are dully collected, translated, and if needed apostilled or legalised in other manner;
- making sure that agreements (including those with the donor and surrogate mother) correspond to requirements of your home country’s consulate/embassy (if any);
- support with filling in and submission of applications at your home country’s consulate/embassy;
- if needed, we may also introduce you to our colleagues from other jurisdictions, who may assist you with any legal matters home, such as second parent adoption, etc.
We do it by the book
And last but not least, we render our services in full compliance with Ukrainian laws and always aim to follow recommendations, best practices, and ethical standards established by ESHRE (European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology), ASRM (American Society for Reproductive Medicine), and ABA (American Bar Association), making sure that our clients always receive a top notch legal support in all aspects of assisted reproductive technology law.