Lawmakers in the Ukraine Parliament have legalized a measure allowing the use of sperm from soldiers who have been killed on the front lines. The legislation changes a previous law which mandated that any sperm donated and frozen by a soldier prior to service be destroyed if the soldier died in combat.
According to NDTV, many soldiers have been freezing their sperm before heading into combat. The new legislative package allows the soldiers’ partners to utilize the frozen sperm in the hopes of becoming pregnant, with the idea that it will “preserve the gene pool of the Ukrainian people, which is particularly urgent amid continuing Russian aggression.”
“[It] is the right of every person to continue their own family,” commented Alla Tsymanovska, a medical lawyer.
However, there are ethical problems with treating children as a “right” to which adults are entitled. One of the biggest concerns with the proposed law is that will deprive the child of one of his parents. Children have an inherent right to both a mother and a father. Psychologist Ewa Kaczorkiewcz also noted that children born of such a situation will also likely feel the weight of heavy expectations.
“Women decide but children do not decide and will just appear in the world. In this case, they will be ‘the child of heroes.’ They may be burdened with expectations that they must do better and achieve their parents’ goals. It can also be difficult to talk about their origins, where and how they came into being,” Kaczorkiewcz pointed out.
Ukraine is already struggling with the pervasive view that children are commodities, which is seen in its booming commercial surrogacy industry. The country is currently the second-most popular in the world for foreign couples seeking surrogates, despite the fact that the country is at war and many of its citizens are living in extreme poverty. Many of the women choosing to become surrogates have admitted to doing so because their husbands are fighting in the war, and they view surrogacy as the only way they can support their families.
