FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in Moscow, Russia, January 20, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
MOSCOW — The lower house of the Russian parliament on Thursday passed in the second and third readings a bill that bans foreigners from using Russian surrogate mothers.
In addition, a child born by a surrogate mother in Russia would automatically be given Russian citizenship. Couples, where one of the spouses is a Russian citizen, will still be able to use Russian surrogate mothers.
Paid surrogacy is legal in Russia, but the practice has been criticized by religious groups as commercializing the birth of children.
Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said that the decision to ban surrogacy in Russia was taken in order to protect Russian children.
RELATED STORIES
Russia to bar foreigners from using its surrogate mothers –lawmaker
Nurse cares for surrogate children in Kyiv as war stops her seeing her own
How Joel Cruz planned his fatherhood