Intended Parents
Surrogacy and Egg Donation in Canada
Despite popular belief, surrogacy and egg donation is very legal in Canada. However, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act prohibits the provision or acceptance of consideration to a woman for acting as an Egg Donor or a Surrogate Mother; it is illegal to pay an Egg Donor for her eggs and it is illegal to pay a Surrogate Mother for carrying a child. It is legal to reimburse a Surrogate Mother or an Egg Donor for incurred expenses.
Link to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, 2004, s.c. 2004, c.2
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/sc-2004-c-2/latest/sc-2004-c-2.html
Link to the Supreme Court of Canada decision Reference re: Assisted
Human Reproduction Act,2010 SCC 61
http://scc.lexum.org/en/2010/2010scc61/2010scc61.html
In Canada, Intended Parent(s) are permitted to reimburse receiptable expenses that are reasonable and journey-related.
Egg donation, simply put, is the process by which a woman donates her eggs for purposes of assisted reproduction. Egg donation typically involves in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technology, where the donor eggs are fertilized with the Intended Father’s or donor sperm. The fertilized embryo is then, transferred to the Intended Mother or Gestational Surrogate.
Gestational surrogacy involves the implantation of a genetically unrelated embryo to the uterus of the surrogate. The embryo(s) could be the result of IVF using the Intended Mother’s egg and the Intended Father’s sperm or donor gametes could be involved. The main positive of gestational surrogacy is that the surrogate is completely unrelated to the child.
Fertility clinics usually require legal agreements to be in place before egg retrievals (from Egg Donors) and embryo transfers (to Surrogate Mothers) take place. Remember that IVF is not a perfect science. Sometimes:
- Sometimes egg donation cycles fail
- Sometimes a surrogate can undergo multiple transfers before a pregnancy is achieved
Proud Fertility’s ideal Intended Parent(s) are very open about using an Egg Donors and/or a Surrogate Mother, and are not ashamed about this. They are not afraid of the steps they need to take to complete their journey to parenthood. Intended Parent(s) are proud of their journey that they need to take to create a family.