Turkey to toughen laws on surrogacy
Turkey’s Ministry of Health prepares a new draft law that would prevent Turks from having children through surrogate mothers, even if abroad.
News about surrogate motherhood has always been a hot topic in the Turkish media, whether it’s about Turkey’s celebrities who express a desire to have a child through a surrogate mother or unconfirmed reports that Kim Kardashian hired a surrogate mother to give birth to her third child. But the recent wave of news in the media regarding surrogacy is about the introduction of a draft law that would punish surrogate mothers with two to five years of imprisonment.
Under the present law, surrogate motherhood is in a gray area. The 282/1 article of the Turkish Civil Code says that the relationship between mother and child is established through birth. This means that surrogate motherhood “has no basis in Turkish law” and that the surrogate mother is the mother. Should a couple try to have a child by a surrogate mother, establishing parenthood becomes a legal muddle. In vitro fertilization, on the other hand, is possible, and there are regulations in the Turkish bylaws about Assisted Reproduction and Infertility Centers, which can be used by married couples only.
