Guarantee of “reset” in case of child death, individual apartments during the stay in the country, 3% discount on all programs “Black Friday” or the opportunity to choose the sex of the child for more money. These are the advertising strategies used by some of the intermediary companies that offer surrogacy services and that try to attract customers to Spain. Practice is not allowed with us, but there are agencies that offer us the opportunity to do so abroad and which usually take care of the whole process. In this way, more than 2,500 children were registered as Spanish citizens through the consulates thanks to a 2010 instruction that makes it possible.
The technique they use as a claim was evaluated by the Women’s Image Observatory (OMI), which depends on the Women’s Institute, which published an analysis of this practice based on 77 complaints received from 2018 to 2021 and a review of websites and social networks. Networks. However, only three complaints concern these types of agencies, and the majority are directed against surrogacy family associations or the media. But most of the research is based on an analysis of how some of these companies make the well-known and behind-the-scenes commercial logic.
The body of the Ministry of Equality criticizes that there are no “available” legal mechanisms in Spain to prevent these actions. And, in fact, he made this analysis public after abortion law reform took the first step in the Council of Ministers, a rule that qualifies surrogacy as a “serious form of reproductive violence” and declares illegal advertising as its target. Is a commercial promotion of this practice. While waiting for the impact of the ban to materialize, the text still has a long way to go and, so far, analysis is the first approach: out of the 23 companies reviewed, 15 are located in Spain.
His job is to act as a mediator between people or couples seeking access to surrogacy and clinics and centers in countries where it is legal, including Canada, the United States, Georgia or Ukraine, which at least existed before the invasion of Russia last February. Become one of the most popular destinations. Agencies are responsible for virtually every procedure and service: from liaison to clinics in the country of origin to insurance, travel, accommodation, translators or child registration advice on returning to Spain.
Not everyone uses the same technique. In fact, a few have softened the language in which they refer to this practice in recent years, and some no longer visibly reflect the high prices of packages on their websites, which can cost from 50,000 to 120,000 euros in Georgia. For example, in the United States. But it is “serious” for the Women’s Institute that they are “promoting” unacceptable practices in our country and condemning that they are doing so “without any kind of restriction” and “resorting to commercial strategies aimed at both expanding and expanding demand. To whitewash their activities.”
Strategies are varied: including offering an “Options Menu” based on more or less expensive services, as well as “Features for pregnant women and unborn children”. In one of the complaints received by OMI, the company Feskov, based in Ukraine, Belgium and the United Kingdom, offers a “VIP surrogacy package” with the possibility of choosing sex. Prices can be found on the Internet: this package costs 59000 euros in Ukraine, and in the Czech Republic “deluxe” package up to 80,000.
Other examples include content in which you try to find potential clients who indicate that they prefer to “stay in shape” or even “do not lose their work rhythm” by resorting to surrogacy and avoiding pregnancy and childbirth. Another announcement was made last November by the Ukrainian company BioTexCom, which offered Black Friday a 3% discount on “All Our Programs”. This company, which has a subsidiary in Spain, is the subject of an investigation launched in the summer of 2019 by the prosecution of the National Supreme Court.
But the analysis also dwells on the language, images and logic that some agencies usually follow for the “mask”, says the agency, “Real Process”: “Pregnancy, under contractual terms, to the surrogate of beings. The mother must resign. ” Advertisements typically refer to “idyllic images” of “blushing, white and light-eyed” babies, although sometimes “diversity quotas” are included, accompanied by promises of “dream fulfillment” or “wish”.
The guarantee of “security” of the process is also common. But not “understanding as a pregnancy without complications”, but “in the implementation and fulfillment of the contractual relationship”, worries the Women’s Institute. “A reset guarantee in the event of a baby’s death,” promises one company: “Unfortunately, from the seventh month of pregnancy, all agencies believe that if a baby is born prematurely and dies, the program is complete and you are. “She was left childless and penniless,” he said.
The study will identify the use of images of pregnant women under the “ordinary beauty advertising laws” and identify other formulas for attracting clients, such as “Surrogate Mothers’ Choice Forms” or “Our European, Asian Mothers and Egg Donor Database”. Phenotype and African, which allows you to choose your ideal donor. Part of the offer is also based on “kits” during your stay abroad, which “encourages you to get packages at the highest price” and which includes mobile phones, wheelchairs, lighters, individual accommodation or discounted flights. “Different companies are competing with this type of service to increase market share,” he added.
In addition to complaints against companies, the report details other complaints received by OMI. In fact, 50 go to the Son Nuestro Hijos Association, including for one campaign she launched in 2018 in Madrid that uses the traditional feminist motto “We give birth, we end” with the hashtag # YoGestarÃa. The body acknowledges that “advertising can not be considered illegal”, but rejects it because “it promotes the practice that it is”. Other complaints relate to media reports and one to the campaign against the Bilbao Metro, which showed two parents through surrogacy as one of the pictures to mark its 25th anniversary.
Source: El Diario
