Ukrainian fertility clinic, BioTexCom Center for Human Reproduction, received sharp criticism from netizens for an advertisement posted to Twitter featuring a woman surrounded by babies with the text: “SALE: Black Friday.” The clinic wrote: “Hurry up and receive a discount. A unique proposal for our clients – 3 percent OFF EVERY PACKAGE.”
In May 2020, photographs from the Kyiv-based surrogacy clinic made global headlines when over 100 babies were left stranded after Ukraine closed its borders to foreign travelers in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
The highly profitable surrogacy industry in Ukraine specifically targets poor women from small villages.
BioTexCom is also one of a few fertility clinics worldwide that is commercializing an untested and highly controversial method of genetic engineering that it markets as “mitochondrial donation.” This involves interfering with mitochondrial DNA of an egg to force an embryo to carry the genetic material of two women and one man, resulting in what is advertised as “three-parent” babies.
Tetiana Shulzhynska, a Ukrainian woman who underwent a surrogacy procedure in 2013 because she desperately needed to pay back a bank loan, attempts to warn other women. Shulzhynska contracted cervical cancer just months after giving birth. In 2020 she told The Guardian, “In a contract, they protect only babies, they don’t care about us.”
Moreover, Dutch researchers who analyzed the health records of more than a million children conceived through assisted reproduction involving frozen embryo transfer found they were more than twice as likely to develop childhood cancer. In addition, a study by the University of Cambridge found that children born via surrogacy are more likely to suffer from depression.
Source: Ukrainian Surrogacy Clinic Advertises Babies for Black Friday