Pablo Porras, 28, recalls his husband Marc’s reaction when he suggested they become parents through surrogacy and gave him options and travel destinations. “Marc took one look and told me that wasn’t going to happen,” he says. But over time he changed his mind and after ruling out adoption, surrogacy was the route they took, an alternative that was illegal in their native country of Spain: “It was very important to me that the baby match my genetic Input receives.” Prost explains. In 2021, with the world still semi-paralyzed by Covid restrictions, the couple flew to Mexico City to meet Norma Nathaly Hernández, the 34-year-old woman who is undergoing hormone treatment and after signing a long and detailed contract should become pregnant. She gave birth five months ago and received around 15,000 euros. The couple are now taking care of their baby at home in Barcelona.
To make this possible, there is a whole network of lawyers, agencies, consultants and clinics that operate in several countries and specialize in bringing childless couples or single people who want to become parents together with women who are often in precarious economic circumstances carry a child for them in countries where surrogacy is legal. The industry operates in a changing legal landscape, traversing different laws and bureaucracies. It circumvents unfriendly laws and adapts to difficult situations, such as the global health crisis caused by the Covid pandemic or the war in Ukraine, which was one of the top surrogacy destinations in the world before the invasion, but where the business deals with 30% of clients continues, according to New Hope, one of the industry’s most important companies.
When last week the cover of the celebrity magazine Hello! showed Spanish actress and TV presenter Ana Obregón, 68, leaving a Miami hospital with her borrowed baby, reignited the ethical and political debate in Spain, where there is a paradox regarding the issue of the state finally recognizing children who were born abroad through surrogacy despite strongly resisting it at home. A 2022 Supreme Court ruling found that “harm on the interests of minors and the exploitation of the women involved are unacceptable”. The contract Hernández signed in Mexico with the Barcelona couple would not stand up in a Spanish court, but the best interests of the minor take precedence once the child arrives in the country.
Until recently, Mexico was not a popular destination for Spaniards seeking surrogacy. But there are now several Spanish agencies that work with companies in Mexico, where prices are cheaper than in the United States, the global reference in surrogacy. Doing this in the US is the best way to guarantee that you are not caught in legal limbo when it comes to obtaining the child’s documents. A US judge will determine the child’s parentage and the Spaniards will be able To the newborn at the consulate. It is also the most expensive destination with prices starting at around €130,000. In Mexico, the price is closer to around €70,000. Both countries are open to all types of couples and sexual orientations. “Most cases of surrogacy that we have registered in Mexico involve homosexual couples from the United States, Spain and Israel,” says Isabel Fulda, deputy director of the Information Group on Chosen Reproduction (GIRE).
In the United States, about 200 surrogacy agencies operate under the umbrella of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), which has established guidelines, although each agency sets its own rules for the profile of the women who become pregnant, price, and budget and age of future parents. One of the largest of these agencies, Growing Generations, based in West Virginia, says it receives between 15,000 and 20,000 applications each year from women willing to conceive for third parties. She selects about 100 from this pool. “Less than 2% of the candidates are selected,” explains Jessica Junyent, Vice President of the Agency for International Development. “Since our founding in 1996, we have delivered 2,126 babies. We work with more than 60 countries, although most of the parents are from Asia and Europe.”
Women who conceive for others in Growing Generations are asking for a minimum of $57,000 — nearly $60,000, although they can reach as high as $100,000. For the expectant parents, the process costs between $145,000 and $250,000, depending on whether they need to provide their own genetic material or resort to egg or sperm donations. The baby is handed over to the expectant parents immediately after birth.
The experiences of women who give birth to unfamiliar babies differ not only according to their origins, but also according to the intermediaries and their own vulnerabilities. Ana, a Mexican woman who chooses not to give her real name for fear of reprisals, became pregnant at the age of 21 for a gay couple from the United States who were clearly looking for a cheaper option than back home. But what seemed like a simple procedure turned into hell on earth for Ana: the hormone treatment necessary for the delivery affected her health, she never received a copy of her contract or met the couple until the day she did Picked up baby as she experienced obstetric aggression and was threatened when she refused to give up the child. The payment was 150,000 pesos – 7,500 euros. “I regretted giving up the baby and they told me it was all perfectly legal and threatened to put me in jail,” she says. “They trade in women’s bodies and profit financially from it.” After the birth, Ana gave up the child, but years later she still has nightmares about it.
Hernández explains that she has had three pregnancies in total and wants to repeat this experience. When asked what she thinks about the babies she has given birth to, she says: “You can’t give them love like you would give your child because you know it’s not your child, but you also know that it is a desired child, an expected child.”
Hernández admits that if there was no payment, she wouldn’t do it. “No woman will have to go through something like this without compensation,” she says. “You would only do that for someone very close to you.” After signing a contract with lots of fine print, she received around €15,200 from the couple in Barcelona, which was paid in 10 installments over the course of the pregnancy. The money actually made up only 16% of the €90,000 Pablo and Marc paid to the agency, which was €20,000 more than they had anticipated because they encountered difficulties getting the child a passport; They were stranded in Mexico for three months and still have not recognized the baby as Spaniard and as the child of both.
Although there is no accurate data on the number of surrogacy agencies in Mexico, it is safe to say that it is a booming business. In 2018, surrogacy was a $6 billion business growing 24.5% annually, according to Eleane Proo, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the numbers quoted from the Surrogacy Market Share Report 2025 “In countries like Mexico, which is an emerging country, surrogacy is very good for the state,” says Proo, who opposes regulation. “That’s why the authorities are turning a blind eye, because it has to do with more investment and more foreigners.”
A contract for pregnancy
For nine months, these women’s lives are dictated by the terms of their contracts. The future parents pay for hormone treatment, diets, transportation, health insurance and medication. In a contract signed in Mexico, a woman agreed to undergo hormonal treatment, not to abandon the process and not to claim the baby after birth. Another contract, issued by a Spanish agency, shows the woman’s considerable control: she has restricted freedom of movement and requires medical clearance to fly at any time during pregnancy; She is not allowed to leave the country after the 24th week of pregnancy if there is a birth outside the jurisdiction where the contract is valid. She also has to notify prospective parents when she starts a new job or changes her address, and she can’t have sexual relations whenever she wants — “this may involve abstinence (…) for extended periods” — or with whomever ever wants—only with a person who has “tested negative for a sexually transmitted disease.” In the case of “organic losses” as a result of pregnancy, the woman receives monetary compensation “for the inconvenience and inconvenience.” The actual sum is less specific: “(…) the amount of which (…) will be determined according to the circumstances.”
It is difficult to gauge the extent of the surrogacy phenomenon given the lack of records in some countries where it is legal. In Spain, the only official reference is that offered by the civil status registers of Spanish consulates abroad. “Between 2010 and 2021, a total of 3,273 babies were registered born under contracts with Spanish citizens,” explains Ana Trejo Pulido in her recent book In the Name of the Parents. Of these, almost half are from the United States (1,441), followed by Ukraine (1,294), India (194), Canada (110) and Mexico (59).
Figures are incomplete as there may also be children registered in Spain, where families can also initiate legal parentage or adoption proceedings. And there is a big discrepancy between these figures and the calculations of the agencies operating in Spain and the main association of parents who resort to this practice, Son Nuestros Hijos (They are our children). “These data are inaccurate,” says Eduardo Chaperón, a spokesman for the organization that brings together around 800 families. “There are many who don’t do the process in the consulates.” He adds that about 1,000 children are born through surrogacy each year. Until properly documented, the children have the citizenship of the country in which they were born. In the meantime, being foreigners in the eyes of the Spanish state, they have to overcome bureaucratic hurdles to access basic services.
The surrogacy sector in Spain has been transformed in recent years. Agency activity has been restricted by the authorities and is limited to offering advice. In the countries where the process is actually carried out, something very different happens than in the USA. There it is the agency “that coordinates everything: the doctor, the nurses, the psychologists, the insurance company and the lawyer, with whom the terms of the contract are set, as well as the legal process of parentage,” says Junyent, who is responsible for the international branch of one of these companies. He adds: “Our candidates are not in it just for the money, because we don’t accept women without resources.”
Chaperón, whose child was born in Los Angeles, insists on this last point. He believes the practice should be regulated and a registry established, and that surrogacy should always be done with equality in mind. “Am I equal to the woman who bore my child?” he says. “Forks. Firstly, because she earns more than me, and also because she lives in a better house than me.” Chaperón wants to draw attention to the educational work of his association, which draws on the experiences of the parents themselves, to mediators – basically Agencies – to avoid “that tarnish the image” of families using surrogacy.
With additional reporting from Silvia Blanco, Clara Angela Brascia, and Almudena Barragan And Maria Antonia Sanchez Vallejo.
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