the assisted human reproduction bill 2017 sets out the proposed law for this area. israel in march 1996, the israeli government legalized gestational surrogacy under the embryo carrying agreements law. this law made israel the first country in the world to implement a form of state-controlled surrogacy in which each and every contract must be approved directly by the state. a state-appointed committee permits surrogacy arrangements to be filed only by israeli citizens who share the same religion. the numerous restrictions on surrogacy under israeli law have prompted some intended parents to turn to surrogates outside of the country. in february 2020, the israeli supreme court ruled the restriction on same-sex couples from entering surrogacy agreements as discriminatory, thus giving the state one year to change the law. in july 2021, the supreme court made a second ruling stating that legislation banning same-sex couples and single men from becoming parents via surrogacy would be null and void within six months. in january 2022, health minister nitzan horowitz announced that surrogacy would be allowed for same-sex couples, transgender people, and single men starting on 11 january. iran all surrogacy arrangements (both commercial and altruistic) are legal and popular. many couples from the middle east do surrogacy in iran due to the legal easiness. italy according to the law decree no. 40 approved on february 19, 2004, by the italian parliament, titled "regulations concerning medically assisted procreation", any form of selling of either gametes or embryos, as well as surrogacy, is prohibited and punished with jail time lasting between three months and two years and with a fine ranging between 600,000 and one million euros (article 12, subsection 6). this prohibition has been further underpinned by a sentence of the italian constitutional court (i.e. sentence no. 272 held in 2017), that stated that "the practice of surrogacy unbearably makes for an offence to woman dignity and profoundly undermines human relations". its legitimacy was confirmed by the italian constitutional court in 2019. in the same year, the partner of the biological father of a surrogated child asked for the recognition of birth certificate which had been registered abroad of italy, but the joint session of the civil sections of the italian supreme court of cassation rejected his legal pursuit. in 2023, prime minister giorgia meloni ordered municipalities to follow a december 2021 court decision to stop certifying foreign birth certificates of children born to italian same-sex couples through use of a surrogate in another country. japan in march 2008, the science council of japan proposed a ban on surrogacy and said that doctors, agents and their clients should be punished for commercial surrogacy arrangements. other than that, it remains unregulated. kenya there is no legal regulations/laws of surrogacy in kenya. malaysia surrogacy is currently prohibited by fatwa issued by national council of islamic religious affairs in 2008. the netherlands altruistic surrogacy is legal in the netherlands. only commercial surrogacy is illegal in belgium and the netherlands. although altruistic surrogacy is legal, there is only one hospital taking in couples and there are extremely strict rules to get in. this makes a lot of couples seek their treatment outside the netherlands or belgium. new zealand altruistic surrogacy is legal. nigeria surrogacy is legal in nigeria, and surrogacy contracts are enforceable in nigerian courts. gestational surrogacy is currently practiced in nigeria by a few ivf clinics. the guidelines are as approved by the practice guidelines of the association of fertility and reproductive health (afrh) of nigeria. the art regulation that is currently being considered by the senate permits surrogacy and allows some inducement to be paid for transport and other expenses. poland surrogacy is mostly unregulated in poland. a 2015 news report estimated there are likely dozens of surrogate mothers in poland. according to family code legal mother of child is always the woman who gave birth to them. portugal heterosexual and lesbian couples could become parents via surrogacy in portugal since 2016, under certain conditions. yet, some parts of this law were considered unconstitutional in 2018 and it has since been suspended. traditional surrogacy is illegal in portugal except for some specific situations that give the right for a surrogate mother to be genetic (for example, if the future adoptive mother is completely barren). before the first legal surrogacy law in 2006, a law was approved that explicitly considered any surrogacy contract to be null and void (law 32/2006, article 8). a limited gestational surrogacy law proposed by the left bloc was approved in parliament on the 13 may 2016, which went through considerable modifications during the five months that it took to get it from project to law (it was discussed in a work group with representatives from all parliamentary groups). the law received the favorable votes of the socialist party (minus two), left bloc (be), the greens (pev), people animals nature (pan), and 24 out of 89 members of the social democratic party (psd, including the former party leader pedro passos coelho). both cds - people's party (cds) and the communist party (pcp) voted against the proposal. the communists justified their vote as being in line with the recommendations of the national ethics council. president marcelo rebelo de sousa vetoed the law as soon as he received it, giving the same justification as the communist party. the law was once again sent to the parliament and passed a second time after some changes, on 20 july 2016, with the favorable votes of be, ps, pev, pan and 20 members of psd. eight members of psd abstained, including pedro passos coelho. the remaining members of psd voted against, as did all members of cds and pcp. limited gestational surrogacy legalization on 22 august 2016, gestational surrogacy was legalized in portugal (law 25/2016) for the cases in which there is an absence of the uterus or, due to lesions or disease, the uterus is unable to successfully carry a pregnancy to term. the article 8 of the 2006 law was revoked. in such cases, the surrogate mother must willingly enter the contract and accept to renounce any motherhood rights and duties. the gestational surrogacy requires a written contract that explicitly deals with the possibility of abortion in certain cases, the ordem dos médicos' opinion (which does not need to be positive) and the national council of medically assisted reproduction's (cnpma) permission. the only payment/donation that the genetic parents can make in favor of the surrogate mother is her medical expenses and the surrogate mother cannot be economically dependent on the genetic parents. no behavioral restrictions can be imposed on the surrogate mother. single men and homosexual male couples cannot have access to gestational surrogacy. the law does not explicitly exclude single women, but requires that only one of the members of the couple has to contribute with genetic material, which may be interpreted as restricting the procedure to couples. the law does not restrict gestational surrogacy to residents, meaning that portugal may become a fertility tourism destination. after the first legal surrogacy law adoption of the law caused some debate within several portuguese christian churches, though not among the once-dominant roman catholic church. representatives of brazilian and us-based evangelical and pentecostal churches condemn surrogacy and suggest that infertile couples can/must (depending on the church) pursue conventional adoption (national or transnational even though the later is banned by law). after the 2016 law was approved, a regulatory decree (6/2017) was created on 31 july 2017 to materialize the 2016 law that included, for example, the requirement that the surrogacy mother is accompanied by a psychologist during and after the birth. in february 2017, a petition with more than 4000 signatures (the legal requirement for the parliament to be forced to discuss the matter of the petition), was submitted to parliament, asking for a referendum on gestational surrogacy. at the same time, a group of members of cds and psd requested that the law was subject to a constitutional inspection. in april 2018, the constitutional court deliberated on the matter and declared that some of the law's articles were in fact unconstitutional. the effects of the decision did not apply to any processes that had initiated the therapeutic procedure. this meant that a single process was allowed, while a total of eight processes that were in different stages of progress were considered null and void. in july 2019, new changes were made to the 2016 law in parliament in an attempt to revert the constitutional court's decisions, but one of the issues raised by the court (regarding the right of the surrogate mother to choose to keep the baby) failed to make it to the final version of the law. the final version had the positive votes of ps, be (the author of the proposal), pev, pan and 21 psd members, as well as five abstentions from psd members. pcp, cds, and 63 psd members voted against it. in august 2019, president marcelo rebelo de sousa sent the law to the constitutional court for review. in september 2019, the 2016 law, after the 2019 changes, was once again considered unconstitutional by the constitutional court. russia gestational surrogacy, even commercial, is legal in russia, being available to practically all adults willing to be parents. there must be one of several medical indications for surrogacy: absence of uterus, deformity of the uterine cavity or cervix, uterine cavity synechia, somatic diseases contraindicating child bearing, or repeated failure of ivf despite high-quality embryos. the first surrogacy program in russia was successfully implemented in 1995 at the ivf centre of the obstetrics and gynecology institute in st. petersburg. public opinion in general is surrogacy-friendly; recent cases of a famous singer and a well-known businesswoman who openly used services of gestational surrogates received positive news coverage. meanwhile, the russian orthodox church has officially condemned surrogacy. as regards the baptism of the children born through surrogacy, the russian orthodox church holds that a "child born with the assistance of “surrogate motherhood” can be baptized according to the wishes of the party that will be raising it, if such are either its “biological parents” or its “surrogate mother,” only after they have recognized that, from the christian point of view, such reproductive technology is morally reprehensible and have borne ecclesial repentance – regardless of whither they ignored the church's position consciously or unconsciously". registration of children born through surrogacy is regulated by the family code of russia (art. 51–52) and the law on acts on civil status (art. 16). a surrogate's consent is needed for that. apart from that consent, no adoption nor court decision is required. the surrogate's name is never listed on the birth certificate. there is no requirement for the child to be genetically related to at least one of the commissioning parents. children born to heterosexual couples who are not officially married or single intended parents through gestational surrogacy are registered in accordance to analogy of jus (art. 5 of the family code). a court decision may be needed in that case. on 5 august 2009 a st. petersburg court definitely resolved a dispute as to whether single women could apply for surrogacy and obliged the state registration authority to register a 35-year-old single intended mother, nataliya gorskaya, as the mother of her surrogate son. on 4 august 2010 a moscow court ruled that a single man who applied for gestational surrogacy (using donor eggs) could be registered as the only parent of his son, becoming the first man in russia to defend his right to become a father through court proceedings. the surrogate mother's name was not listed on the birth certificate; the father was listed as the only parent. after that, a few more identical decisions concerning single men who became fathers through surrogacy were issued by different courts in russia, listing men as the only parents of their surrogate children and confirming that prospective single parents, regardless of their sex or sexual orientation, can exercise their right to parenthood through surrogacy in russia. liberal legislation makes russia attractive for "reproductive tourists" looking for techniques not available in their countries. intended parents go there for oocyte donation because of advanced age or marital status (single women and single men) and when surrogacy is considered. foreigners have the same rights for assisted reproduction as russian citizens. within