The 28-year-old pregnant mother was made to travel to Don Benito from Romania, his homeland. Like the couple themselves, also Romanian, but residing in this town in Badajoz, where they devised a calculated plan to – through a surrogate – stay on property with the newborn child. The admission of the surrogate mother was going to follow the regulatory channels in the hospital itself, where the delivery took place last morning. The supposed 42-year-old father went to the health center, who was wandering the corridors, like any other in his situation if the frustrated outcome had not been known, while his real wife, 43, was waiting excitedly at home of the couple. The deal had been agreed three months earlier in Romania. But it all fell apart little by little.
The practice of surrogacy is prohibited in our country by Law 14/2006, which means that Spaniards who want to access it -called intended parents- are forced to travel abroad. The case here is led, instead, by a Romanian couple. She had been trying to have children without success for years, as evidenced by the health card of the non-pregnant woman, which was the one that the pregnant woman presented on her admission. Not yours. The three would end up in detention after the delivery and the farce was discovered. Today they will go to court.
At first, everything seemed to be going perfectly: the paid trip of the pregnant woman to Don Benito, plus a sum for renting her womb of 2,000 euros; the labor pains that make her enter Don Benito-Villanueva’s hospital, and her father accompanying her. But everything fell apart in an early morning that would end up taking forever, with the surrogate mother in the delivery room under police custody. And marriage, at the police station.
The man was arrested at the hospital itself while his wife was arrested at the house where police officers appeared instead of their baby. A sad story.
Nothing began to fit during the night, which led the hospital staff themselves to decide to raise the alarm to the Police. The first thing the young woman presented, in severe labor pains, to formalize her admission was a health card, with a name in Romanian, which would later turn out that it was not hers but that of the woman who was waiting at home for the arrival of the baby. . This card included the clinical history that also reflected an obvious age difference -15 years-. It was the first suspicion although it was a visual interpretation. Because what was really decisive is that the card reflected that the patient had undergone an appendicitis operation. And in the body of the woman who was in the delivery room there was no sign of it. Not a scar, not a sequel. Nothing. Then, as EL MUNDO has been able to verify from police sources, who really had it, of course, was the other woman. But that was discovered a few hours later.
Before, the father, or alleged father, began to respond in an incongruent way with visible symptoms of nervousness both to the first questions from the doctors and, later, from the Police. He did not consistently clarify why his supposed wife had not presented original documents at her admission, only a photocopy of the health card. And the information that reflected it, such as the appendicitis operation, did not match his physical examination.
The plot was unfolding. Another conclusive piece of information also appeared on the card: it reflected that he had undergone several unsuccessful attempts at in vitro fertilization (IVF). Everything began to fit already in the investigation. Finally, he himself recognized the agents who had paid the amount of 2,000 euros in Romania to buy the newborn, admitting that the woman admitted was not his wife. At least, in this story, both the baby, a boy, and his mother are in good condition. Now, they are waiting for the decision of Court number 1 of Don Benito that is handling the case so that the authorities decide who should take care of the newborn.
It so happens that last week the Police arrested four people at the Virgen del Rocío Maternal and Child Hospital in Seville for their alleged participation in the sale of a newborn. They were also accused of the crimes of illegal trafficking for the purchase of the baby and documentary falsification. The plan was similar in both cases. On that occasion, two couples who planned the delivery of the baby of one of the two women who gave birth to a couple who could not have children in exchange for a “high” economic consideration, an amount that in this case the Police did not detail.
The matter was treated by the health personnel as a “poorly controlled pregnancy”, since there was no follow-up or previous tests.
Similarly, in the case of Extremadura, the woman’s medical history contained records of having requested in vitro fertilization treatment because she was unable to have children, facts that were relevant to presuppose that she was posing as another person. After the events, the Seville Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office decreed that the newborn be handed over to the Association for the Protection of Minors of the Junta de Andalucía.
Despite the debate established in Spanish society in recent years by the proposals to regulate surrogacy, article 10 of the law of 14/2006 on assisted reproduction techniques is still in force and specifies that “the contract by which the gestation is agreed, with or without price, by a woman who renounces maternal affiliation in favor of the contracting party or a third party.
And he adds: «The parentage of children born by surrogate pregnancy will be determined by childbirth. The possible claim of paternity with respect to the biological father, in accordance with the general rules, remains safe.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
