Statement from the OmbudsPerson elect:
I would like to thank the institutions and representatives for putting their trust in me and the future team for this very important matter that is now seems to be at a watershed.
The doors to surrogacy are
closing across Europe and many other countries across the world as well.
Summa Sumarum, it is easier for a country to ban surrogacy than invest
a huge amount of time and effort navigating a minefield of various interest
groups and a mountain of ethical and legal challenges.
We intend that the Surrogacy OmbudsOffice will be able to support and
placate governments with a clear view of the Surrogacy ecosystem, protected
through strong ethical and governance frameworks.
We believe that surrogacy has an important place in the world. Its huge
benefits are to enrich the existence of people who desire nothing more
than to share their life with their child.
At its heart, it is an essential human right; for people to pass on
their genes, and experience the miracle of parenthood. And as some people
cannot do this the natural way surrogacy is the only alternative to
overcome their infertility.
However with all the unethical surrogacy providers polluting the surrogacy
space, and given the complexity of all the facets of the process, the
task of our office will be a difficult one.
It is at the conjunction of all these many issues that I as the Global
Surrogacy OmbudsPerson intend to agitate, with our office and the resources
at our disposal.
At its distilled essence, our prime purpose is to balance the ethical,
legal, and emotional considerations involved in Surrogacy to ensure
rights of all participants are protected and the well-being of all parties
guaranteed.
An example: One case we are following at the moment most intensely
is an East Europe provider who, looking at current evidence, seems to
be running a bait and switch / up-sell scam where they have a customer
pay a lot of money for a "guaranteed" program. The conducting
of this program being quite unprofessional and of course did not meet
with success. This provider could not have been faster in offering a
further "guaranteed program" at 3x the amount paid for the
first, but this time guaranteeing that this guaranteed program was guaranteed.
It is unclear how stupid or desperate they imagine their customers to
be? This kind of bait and switch with a commensurate massive upselling
is the kind of behaviour that will be the catalyst leading to Surrogacy
in their country and a few other places being made illegal.
European governments who have already banned surrogacy have, at the moment, a huge financial leverage over some East Europe countries, and enough outrage from citizens being scammed will move the fulcrum of this leaver. At a country level, patience is fast eroding commensurate with the increasing amount of emotionally vulnerable citizens being scammed.
Pity the few surrogacy providers who ruin the industry for all their
other compatriots on the market!
At our last round-table meetings in Geneva we were very impressed by
a large Albanian healthcare company who is aiming to enter the market,
with a base in Cyprus They have a comprehensive set of ethics and governance
guidelines, backed up by globally renowned auditors.
