While talking about surrogacy in Canada, we can say that surrogacy in Canada is legal but there are many restrictions, rules, and laws which one has to follow to complete surrogacy’s cycle successfully. Intended parents have to struggle a lot to find a suitable surrogate mother and have to do all the legal work to pursue the cycle of surrogacy. According to The Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA), only altruistic surrogacy is permitted in Canada.
There are many laws which Intended parents have to follow like:
- They can’t advertise surrogacy in terms of money.
- They can’t pay the surrogate mother of giving birth to their baby.
- They have to pay for the “other expenses”.
- They have to follow the legal procedure strictly.
- They also have to make a contract with a surrogate mother.
Even after the contract’s presence, the surrogate mother has all the rights to the child at the time of birth of the baby. If she changes her mind, the intended parents can file a case in court regarding this.
If the intended parents change their mind, the baby born with surrogacy can be put up for adoption. The people of Quebec and Brunswick don’t really use surrogacy because couples have to adopt the surrogate baby there.
People of Canada are struggling with the problem of infertility and they use surrogacy to have their babies but they don’t talk about it openly because “they are not supposed to say that they can’t produce babies”. In Canada, a neighbour of yours may be having a child with surrogacy but you may not have any knowledge about it.
In Canada, surrogacy is expensive as you can’t pay surrogate mother legally but you have to pay for the “other expenses” like medical checkups, assistance, travel, hotels, grocery etc. There is also another norm which states that the birth certificate of the baby born with surrogacy can be listed in the names of either two women, two men or a single parent.
Gay couples and Lesbian couples are using surrogacy to have their babies in high rate after the legalisation of same-sex marriages in Canada. The Agreement or contract for surrogacy may differ from each other depending upon the territorial laws in which the intended Parents and surrogate mother is living.
Surrogacy in Canada came into existence because of the need of the couples as they are struggling with infertility. And to solve this issue surrogacy was introduced so that couples can have a baby and enjoy parenthood. It was also introduced for Gay couples so that they can have babies legally.