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Legal Status of Surrogacy in Finland
Senior Adviser Salla Silvola
Ministry of Justice
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Current legal status
• Act on Assisted Fertility Treatments (1237/2006) prohibits provision of assisted fertility treatments, if ”there is reason to presume that the child will be given up for adoption”.– IVF-assisted surrogacy is forbidden
• Adoption Act (22/2012) prohibits granting adoption e.g. ”if any remuneration for the adoption has been given or promised”.– Commercial surrogacy in any form is forbidden
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Former legal status
• Prior to Act on Assisted Fertility Treatments (i.e. prior to 1.9.2007, when the Act entered into force)– Gap in legislation allowed fertility clinics to provide non-commercial
IVF-surrogacy
– Surrogate mothers were either close relatives or friends/volunteers
– During 1991-2001 approx. 20 surrogacy arrangements, 11 births
– Reported cases of depression (2/10), legal dispute of motherhood (1), uncertainty of paternity during pregnancy (1)
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Finnish cases of surrogacy abroad• National Advisory Board on Social Welfare and Health Care
Ethics: – Estimate: 5 couples going abroad annually– No statistics
• July 2012– Helsinki Appeal court confirmed paternity of twins born by surrogacy
in Russia on the basis of a Russian birth certificate
• October 2012– Helsinki Appeal court did not confirm the intended mother as
custodian on the basis of a Russian birth certificate
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Current legal activity
• Statement by National Advisory Board on Social Welfare and Health Care Ethics in 2011– In some single cases IVF-surrogacy may be ethically acceptable– Further legal analysis must be carried out
• Memorandum on surrogacy published by Ministry of Justice September 2012– Memorandum gives three choices:
1. Maintaining legal status quo2. Allowing non-commercial surrogacy without restrictions3. Allowing non-commercial surrogacy in single cases
– Memorandum does not take a stand which alternative should be preferred
– Deadline for comments: mid-November 2012