LA LEGALIZACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA DE LA GESTACIÓN POR SUSTITUCIÓN EN ESPAÑA (CRÓNICA DE UNA ILEGALIDAD Y REMEDIOS PARA COMBATIRLA).

Abstract

Although the assisted reproductive resource of surrogate motherhood is outlawed in Spain, the Spanish Civil Registry is registering the children of Spanish citizens born abroad from surrogate mothers. Administrative channels are thus flouting civil laws on the determination of filiation, endowing obviously false statements with the legitimating force of registration. The temporary nature of the situation, yielding as it does to civil court judgments, does not make its radical inconsistency with basic principles of Spanish legislation any less important. Those basic principles demand that the situation be brought into line with the law. In this paper a number of decisions by the Directorate-General of Registries and court judgments on surrogate motherhood are subjected to critical analysis in the light of law and interpretative legal doctrine, and some ways of settling this undesirable situation are suggested.