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Shutterstock/Olga Danylenko
Motherhood
Portuguese medics clear woman's bid to bear grandchild
Gestational surrogacy was legalised in Portugal in 2016.
PORTUGAL HAS APPROVED its first surrogate mother – a 50-year-old grandmother who will bear a child to allow her daughter to start a family.
The Portuguese Council for Assisted Birth unanimously approved the request of a 30-year-old woman who cannot bear children following a surgical procedure for endometriosis.
“Despite several other cases put forward, only this one was examined by the council and unanimously approved,” a statement said.
Portugal’s national medical council will now review it and has 60 days to make a ruling. It is widely expected to give it the go ahead.
Gestational surrogacy was legalised in Portugal in 2016 and confined to cases only where a woman cannot bear a child for medical reasons – especially due to a dysfunctional or absent uterus.
The law stipulates that surrogate motherhood should be altruistic – the woman who agrees to carry and give birth to a child should not be paid for her services.
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