Malta [Case 5 : surrogate motherhood contracts]

Abstract

Mr and Mrs Duck may not require Miss Swan to give Donny to them and may not reclaim the amount of money they paid to Miss Swan. Variation 1: It would make no difference if Miss Swan had received a sum of €25,000 for acting as a surrogate mother. Variation 2: It would make no difference if Donny had been conceived using genetic material of both Mr and Mrs Duck and Miss Swan had only carried and given birth to him. Under current Maltese law, the acts perpetrated by Mr and Mrs Duck as well as Miss Swan would be held to be unlawful. In fact, the Embryo Protection Act (EPA) punishes anyone who carries out an artificial fertilisation of a human embryo or transfers a human embryo into any surrogate mother.