THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD IN REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA. FROM CRIMINAL OFFENSE TO LIBERAL REGULATION
Keywords:
surrogacy, legislation, family, legal parentage, childrenAbstract
Surrogacy is the new reality of modern times. The expansive progress of technical-technological
achievements in all segments of social life, undoubtedly brought revolutionary changes in the field of reproductive
human medicine, which beyond to the decade institution of adoption, allowed a new method of so-called assisted
human reproduction-surrogacy. From a modern perspective, surrogacy or surrogate motherhood represents a
reproductive option, the birth of a child for another, an alternative to unsuccessful in vitro fertilization, a different
possibility for creating a family in cases where the parental relationship cannot be created otherwise. Republic of
North Macedonia can also vaunt with the first live-born child conceived with the cooperation of biomedical assisted
fertilization methods from a domiciliary surrogate mother. The subject matter arouses particular attention for the
wider and academic public, which is why surrogacy was accepted in the macedonian positive law relatively recently
in 2014 with the new substantial changes to the existing law on biomedical assisted fertilization from 2008, with
which the country was counted among the rare states that legally allowed surrogacy as a humane reproductive
possibility, bringing the most liberal model of surrogacy in Europe. The use of surrogate motherhood and the more
pronounced abandonment of the millennial legal presumption mater simper certa est in which basis does not exist
doubt that the real mother of the child is the woman who gives birth, actualizes an extremely serious series of legal
dilemmas, moral and ethical discomfort, danger of crime, different regulations and non-recognition of parental
rights, which in extreme cases also contradict the best interest of the child. Although it’s still too early to note the
results of the novelties in the law, the author will try to give a qualitative analysis of the positive solutions in the area
of changes to surrogacy and through the obtained results to present the weaknesses arising from the current model
for regulating surrоgacy in order to saw possible space for future corrections. In this regard, in the centar of author's
attention will also be considered the problematic normative solutions which open up a series of problems and
questions in the area of: the prohibition of unmarried couples to come forward as potential parents, the introduction
of the possibility of allogeneic surrogacy in which the uterus of the surrogate the mother is implanted with a donated
embryo that has no genetic and biological affiliation with the married couple, the right of the married couple to
request abortion or interception of the pregnancy of the gestational carrier due to medically-scientific justified
indications etc.
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