Ecuador

Summary

1. INTRODUCTION

The first Ecuadorian “test-tube baby” was born in Quito on 10 June 1992, thanks to Dr Iván Valencia Madera, a pioneer in the development of assisted reproductive techniques (ART) in Ecuador, whose Fertility and Sterility Medical Centre (CEMEFES), affiliated with the Latin American Assisted Reproduction Network (REDLARA), is located in Quito. This centre also was the first to institute a semen “bank” (deposit centre) in Ecuador, in 1984. In that same centre, the first birth resulting from cryopreserved embryos took place, on 20 May 1999.

According to information from REDLARA, in Ecuador there have been 1,514 cases of babies born through these techniques. According to ACESS there are 18 assisted fertility centres in Ecuador, half of them in Quito (Pichincha Province), four in Guayaquil (Guayas Province), one in Salinas (Santa Elena), three in Cuenca (Azuay), and one in Machala (El Oro). Of these, eight are centres accredited by REDLARA.

According to information collected in 2018 by the National Bioethics Commission of the Ministry of Health, surrogacy has been practiced in Ecuador for at least 23 years.

The Ecuadorian assisted fertilisation centres regularly practice surrogacy; however, according to the practising physicians, only a very low percentage of their patients resort to it. Pedro Valdivieso, director of the Fertility Unit of the Alcívar clinic, a centre affiliated with REDLARA, says that less than 1% of patients resort to it. Despite this very low percentage, that clinic uses the phrase “womb for hire in Ecuador” on its Facebook page to promote its website. It also contains a surrogate mothers’ blog.

Notwithstanding the long-standing practice of ART in Ecuador, the only legal regulations referring to ART are criminal provisions, and none of these refer to surrogacy. Article 89 of the Criminal Integral Organic Code makes non-consensual insemination a crime against humanity. Article 164, in the chapter referring to crimes against sexual and reproductive integrity, sanctions anyone who artificially inseminates or transfers a fertilised egg into a woman without her consent with imprisonment of five to seven years or, if the woman is under 18 years old or does not have the capacity to understand the meaning of the act, or for any reason cannot resist it, with imprisonment for seven to ten years.