Legal initiative for Gestational Surrogacy in Portugal: an overview of the legal, regulatory, and ethical issues

Abstract

Gestational surrogacy is a controversial ethical issue worldwide. In 2016, Portugal launched a second political attempt to legalize gestational surrogacy, proposing it as: being altruistic; forbidding a biological tie between the surrogate and the child; requiring a biological relationship between one of the legal parents and the child; and demanding a legal contract between the surrogate and the legal parents. The law was approved, regulated and entered into force. However, months later, the Constitutional Court ruled some of its norms unconstitutional, namely due to: the legal ambiguity of the surrogacy contracts; too short a deadline for the surrogate’s withdraw of consent; and the need to comply with the children’s right to know their biological origin. The law entered a complex political and legal process. It also caused a serious problem in assisted reproductive treatments, with the suspension of those treatments that entailed the anonymity of the donors. The law on surrogacy was, finally, enacted in November 2021, although the introduction of its regulation is still pending. This paper describes the legal process, within its political context, stressing the ethical issues at stake, and presenting the initiative for legalization of gestational surrogacy in Portugal as a valuable case study analysis: of how a top-down initiative, ideologically driven and politically rushed, and which ignores ethical advice, generates a troubled and penalizing legal process for the people involved.