News
Marta Duarte, Partner of CCA Law Firm, writes an opinion piece for Jornal de Negócios on gestational surrogacy in Portugal, which has already been accepted by the CNECV (National Ethics Council for the Life Sciences), the CNPMA (National Council for Medically Assisted Procreation) and the Constitutional Court. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court considers paid gestational surrogacy to be a criminal offense, where the surrogate mother receives certain amounts in return.
"Is the criminalization of the paid gestational surrogacy justifiable and necessary?", stresses Marta Duarte, "criminal law is a right that should be used as a last resort, being reserved for the protection of the fundamental legal assets of life in society (...) this prohibition, simply because there is an associated payment, is more of a moral imposition than the intention to protect any legal asset worthy of criminal protection".
According to the lawyer, "the truth is that it is up to the criminal law to protect legal assets and not moral conceptions".