Surrogacy: Why Couples Have Their Children Carried in Mexico
Couples from Germany are also using the service: In Mexico, the surrogacy business is highly commercialized. But there is no uniform legal framework, and this poses dangers for surrogate mothers and prospective parents.
Carey Nañez beams from ear to ear as she shows photos on her phone of Eva and Kalea — twins she carried for a couple from the United States who were unable to have children themselves. The twins are now three years old. The last time Nañez saw them in person, they were three months old.
"It makes me happy to see that they are happy, that the girls are doing well," says the Mexican woman. Every now and then she receives photos of the children. From the beach. From birthdays. At Christmas. The 27-year-old came across the idea of offering herself as a surrogate through a Facebook advertisement.
Agencies and clinics in Mexico use social media platforms for recruitment, advertising comprehensive medical, legal, and psychological support. A few clicks and health checks at the hospital later, the contract was signed. The prospective parents were already waiting in the wings.
Around 20,000 euros for the surrogate mother
Today, Nañez is critical of the agency: "The agency said I would meet the parents beforehand. In fact, I never saw them until the 8th week," she reports. "That was when you could hear the baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound. The doctor briefly called the mother via video call and told her there were two children, not just one."
Nañez received the equivalent of around 20,000 euros for the surrogacy. She invested the money in therapies for her own sick son.
Surrogacy is a global business. In many European countries, carrying children for others for commercial purposes is prohibited. This drives many couples seeking to have children abroad.
Germans too "order" babies in Mexico
Vivian Günther proudly lists the countries her clients come from. Her agency "Babygest" in Mexico City acts as an intermediary for surrogate mothers — including for Germans, around 15 per year. They pay — for example in the case of in vitro fertilization — the equivalent of 50,000 euros.
The lawyer rejects the notion that babies are treated as a commodity. Surrogate mothers are not selected arbitrarily: "I believe that a process can be carried out ethically — for example, the surrogate mother must not rely solely on surrogacy as a source of income, and she must meet certain psychological and social criteria," says Günther. "If that is guaranteed, then I don't think we can talk about commercialization here."
Even if the pregnancy and the surrogacy arrangement proceed ethically, one problem remains in Mexico: the uncertain legal situation. This is also acknowledged by Veronica Esparza, a lawyer at the Mexican women's rights organization GIRE.
If banned, "everything moves to the black market"
"We have a very fragmented legal situation in which each federal state is independently empowered to regulate civil and family law matters," explains Esparza. "In some states, surrogacy has been regulated, while in others it is expressly prohibited. This naturally leads to a great deal of uncertainty."
The result: when it comes to the legal recognition of parenthood, surrogate mothers and prospective parents in Mexico are dependent on the goodwill of individual judges.
Surrogate mother Carey Nañez also had to endure an odyssey through the bureaucratic system. The judge refused to recognize the DNA samples for weeks. Nevertheless, she remains an advocate for surrogacy. "The solution is not to ban it, but to regulate it and shape it in a way that anyone who wants to do it can do so safely," says Nañez. "I believe that when governments ban something, everything moves to the black market, into the shadows."
