CASE STUDY

ON
PATERNITY AND FILIATION ON NON-CONVENTIONAL
METHODS OF PROCREATION
(SURROGACY)

SUBMITTED BY:
KM CHRISTIAN A. VILLANUEVA
STUDENT

SUBMITTED TO:
Ruth Ann Posadas Marino, RN-MAN
INSTRUCTOR

LEGAL MEDICINE – CRIM 142

BSCRIMINOLOGY-IV

MAY 24, 2020

INTRODUCTION:
That surrogacy services are now offered in several local hospitals and that many Filipinos have gone
abroad to avail of it should be enough to impel Congress to legislate on it, consistent with our
Constitution and family values.

Here are some problems that are connected to surrogacy that the Philippines should be aware of;
A "human trafficking syndicate" has been hiring Filipino women to travel to Cambodia to carry surrogacy
babies for foreigners, including Australians, Philippine authorities say.

Four women were detained at Manila's international airport on New Year's Day while about to depart for
Phnom Penh, indicating that surrogacy clinics are still operating in the city despite a crackdown on
commercial surrogacy there.

First ever commercially transacted case of surrogacy in the Philippines. It was arranged by a foreign
company between a Filipino married woman and a male gay couple from Malaysia and Denmark.

Despite the problems of surrogacy there are no laws governing surrogacy in the Philippines where, in the
first known surrogacy case in 2008, a baby boy was born in an arrangement between a gay male couple
from Malaysia and Denmark and a married Filipino woman.

Any attempt to legalize commercial surrogacy would likely be opposed by the Catholic Church in
majority-Catholic Philippines.

BACKGROUND:
Womb for Hire
The story almost reads like a fairy tale: no sooner had the child been born than it was taken from its
mother and whisked to a land far, far away.

Except that in this case, the infant was flown as hand-carried baggage from Manila to Bangkok, swaddled
in the arms of a Danish man who had bought and prepaid for the baby boy.
Far from being a tale of enchantment, what took place seven months ago in October was the first ever
commercially transacted case of surrogacy in the Philippines. It was arranged by a foreign company
between a Filipino married woman and a male gay couple from Malaysia and Denmark.

“The egg is actually her own,” Michael Ho, owner of Singapore-based Asian Surrogates, told Newsbreak.
He said the woman, whom he declined to name, became pregnant in a “pretty straight forward” manner –
through intrauterine insemination or IUI.

“The sperm is inserted into the womb of the surrogate and she gets pregnant, (with) no physical contact”
with the male client, he assured.

Because the client “donated” his own sperm, he is the baby boy's legitimate father and therefore has the
legal right to take the infant out of the country, he said. The mother's prior consent is part of the
transaction, he added.

“The father took him back to Thailand because even though he's Danish, he was working in Thailand,” he
said.

He said the gay couple paid Asian Surrogates at least 45,000 Singapore dollars or P1.4 million pesos for
the service. Of this amount, roughly P715,074 or 22,000 Singapore dollars went to the Filipina for renting
out her womb and providing her eggs. The sum would roughly take her 5.4 years to earn on minimum
wage.

Eight other Filipino women are eagerly waiting in line to provide a similar service, Ho said, expressing
his satisfaction.

“I have to say, the Filipinas, they are all very helpful, very enthusiastic. I find the Filipina excellent as a
surrogate mother.”

However, they all appeared to be media shy since all refused to be interviewed for this article.

The transaction went unnoticed in the Philippines. Social welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral said in an
interview that she was not aware that commercial surrogacy was being practiced in the country. Even if it
was, she said there was no law to ban it.
Womb Service-Provider
Ho's company has been operating for four years now as a womb-service provider and claims to have
clients in 15 countries including the Philippines, Canada, US, France, Belgium and Germany.

As a womb service-provider, Asian Surrogates is pretty up front with its array of services and fees.

It claims to handpick surrogates. They have to be non-smokers, non-drinkers, bright, healthy and
attractive, below 30 but married or with a partner, and a tested baby-maker with at least one child born the
natural way.

Unlike similar companies in India which advertise their surrogates are at least five foot three inches tall,
Ho's company imposes no height requirement.

However, he stresses that his girls “do not change their minds, (are) reliable, caring and ethical,”
meaning, they “do not keep a couple's baby for their own gain.”

The straightforward transaction discards any notion of romantic love or lust between the surrogate and her
male client. Still, Ho believes love motivates his handpicked girls: They “want to help their own families
with the fees they earned” and their husbands, partners or families understand and support this.

His company arranges both the “traditional” and “gestational” forms of surrogacy. The first method is
illustrated by the Danish national's case, where his sperm was mixed with the surrogate's own eggs
through artificial insemination.

The “gestational” method is harder, riskier and costlier. Here, the surrogate merely acts as the host. Eggs
from another woman are mixed with sperm in a laboratory using a process called in vitro fertilization.
The resulting embryo – popularly known as a “test tube baby” - is then planted inside the surrogate's
womb.

The traditional or natural surrogacy, if done in Manila, costs at least 45,000 Singapore dollars
(US$30,380.80). This is easily thrice more expensive than in India, but far cheaper than in the United
States.
Der Spiegel magazine, in a September 25, 2008 piece called “The Life Factory”, estimated that
commercial surrogacy in India costs US$10,000, and between US$50,000 to US$80,000 in the US. (See
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,580209-3,00.html)

Costs in Manila could go up, though, in case of medical complications such as the “loss of reproductive
organ.”

Ho's company justifies its price. This includes the surrogate's fee, her clothing allowance, food, housing,
travel, insurance, medical bills and loss of wages. It also includes chauffeuring the client parents around
and housing them.

Looking at the lengthy menu of its services, the firm is in effect practicing medical tourism in the
Philippines.

The fee is paid in six gives, with an initial down payment of 5,000 Singapore dollars upon signing the
surrogacy agreement. By the third month of pregnancy, two-thirds would have been paid up.

The company makes no mention what would happen to the baby in case the client fails to pay all.

Ho has a separate company, Ivimed, that buys from egg donors at 6,000 Singapore dollars per retrieval.
The fee is higher if the donor has a doctorate or a special talent like in music or math.

A client pays 13,500 Singapore dollars for the egg harvesting and other expenses such as egg donor
screening, travel, housing and food. Ivimed claims the harvesting won't hurt, “though some pelvic
heaviness, soreness or cramps are common.” Interestingly, the company provides a 250,000 Singapore
dollars insurance “in case of medical emergency.”

Ho told Newsbreak that the harvested unused eggs “are frozen in a doctor's clinic, either here (in
Singapore) or in Malaysia.”

“The eggs belong to the girls,” not to his firm. “We take care of our girls, don't worry,” he said.

ANALYSIS:
Surrogacy remains to be underdeveloped in the Philippines because of the many risks involved in the
process. Secrecy shrouds surrogacy due to its legal predicaments and its nonconformity to the Catholic
belief system that dominates Philippine society. Implications include demonizing women’s work and the
necessity of academic discourse that addresses surrogacy have been explored.

The legalization of the practice of surrogacy is not just a problem in the Philippines, but has also been put
to debate worldwide. In 1995, Israel lifted its ban on surrogacy, while in the same year, the Italian court
of law removed surrogacy from its list of legal ART procedures (Coleman, 1996).
The status of surrogacy varies from country to country as well. In places such as Australia, surrogacy is
allowed if it is purely altruistic in nature (Karandikar et al, 2014). In the Philippines, on the other hand,
surrogacy is often compared to “child trafficking” as the act of “buying a child” through its development
in a body of a surrogate. However, the act of surrogacy happens before the child is even born, thereby
debunking the comparison

Negative emotional and psychological effects are further imposed on a surrogate during her pregnancy.
Attachment to the fetus is one such effect and indeed, it is found that women who do not distance
themselves from the baby tend to fall into postpartum depression over the relinquishing of the baby and
abdication of all parental. Moreover, the relationship dynamic between the intended parents and the
surrogate mother changes. The surrogate eventually becomes powerless after giving birth as whatever
amount of contact she will have with the baby will be dictated by the intended parents afterward.

PROPOSED SULOTION/RECOMMENDATION:
Surrogacy completes families. For those who have struggled with infertility, LGBT couples, and those
with medical conditions that make pregnancy unsafe, surrogacy is often the answer to years of
unsuccessful attempts to create a family.

Surrogacy allows for genetic connections. Gestational surrogacy often enables one or both parents to
maintain a biological relationship with their child.

Surrogacy creates relationships. Many intended parents become close with their surrogate and her family
during the process, developing meaningful bonds that can last a lifetime.

Surrogacy involves few surprises. A legally binding contract outlining everyone’s expectations will be
negotiated and signed prior to the embryo transfer, so everyone will know exactly what to expect during
the surrogacy process. A court order is obtained prior to birth of the child, confirming the intended
parents’ legal rights.

Surrogacy ensures you are involved. Intended parents are often able to be involved in their surrogate’s
pregnancy, attending key appointments and being present for important milestones, including the embryo
transfer and birth.

Surrogacy is likely to be successful. Surrogates have a proven track record of carrying healthy
pregnancies, which often makes surrogacy more likely to be successful than fertility treatments for
intended parents.

CONCLUSION:
Despite the prominence of the Catholic Church, and while there is discrimination against gay and lesbian
couples, including the inability to adopt - and as I understand it for lesbian couples being unable to access
IVF- nevertheless there are IVF clinics. There has been no criminalisation of gay sex since 1822, when
the Napoleonic Code came into effect.

Infertility is a real crisis for many married couples. Medical advances can help a significant number, but
many still face the possibility of forever remaining childless. Adoption is not a feasible alternative for
most because fewer and fewer children are available. Hence, a surrogate is often their only choice. We
feel, however, that while infertile couples desperately seek to have a baby, their desires should not be met
at the expense of transforming human reproduction into a purely utilitarian enterprise.

The idea of negotiating pregnancy by commercial contract should be abhorrent to anyone who believes in
the dignity of human life. Commercialized surrogacy reduces women to the status of breeding animals,
their wombs rented, their eggs bought and sold in much the same manner as commercial livestock. In the
surrogacy process, the ultimate victim is the baby, whose identity is fragment between two parents whose
only relationship with each other is a financial agreement.

REFERENCES:
https://opinion.inquirer.net/120867/human-rights-adoption-and-surrogacy

https://opinion.inquirer.net/120565/surrogate-motherhood-and-the-law
https://www.smh.com.au/world/philippine-police-arrest-surrogate-motherstobe-in-human-trafficking-
crackdown-20170104-gtli45.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3531011/

https://news.abs-cbn.com/specials/wanted-surrogate-mothers

https://familytreesurrogacy.com/blog/pros-cons-surrogate/

https://southernsurrogacy.com/surrogacy-information/the-challenges-and-rewards-of-surrogacy-for-
everyone-involved/

https://news.abs-cbn.com/special-report/06/16/09/womb-hire-part-1

https://news.abs-cbn.com/special-report/06/19/09/womb-hire-part-2

https://news.abs-cbn.com/specials/wanted-surrogate-mothers

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/02/17/4-surrogate-moms-promised-8700-rescued-from-trafficking-
syndicate

https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2685&context=facpub