Ana Obregón has returned to Spain this Wednesday with her daughter-granddaughter in her arms and with a somewhat adverse legal horizon to register Ana Sandra as her granddaughter or legal daughter in the country. From the administrative and legal point of view in Spain, the actress faces a labyrinth based on the fact that surrogacy is not allowed in Spain.
The Law on Assisted Human Reproduction Techniques declares surrogacy contracts null and void, but there is an exception regarding babies born in another country that declares the parentage of the baby through a court ruling, as is the case in the state of Florida, where the mother was born. Posthumous daughter of Alex Lequio.
As the lawyer Marisa Bautista has recounted in Cadena Ser, “with the Civil Code in hand, without going into bioethics, from a legal point of view, it is complicated.” The actress and biologist has a difficult time because for a filiation claim to follow its legal course, a DNA test must be provided that certifies that one of the biological parents is the one who requests the filiation, and that is impossible in the case of Obregón.
The adoption of the girl is not an easy path for the biologist either, although it is viable. She would require a certificate of suitability to exercise parental authority, which could be denied for multiple reasons. The most elementary is that, according to article 175 of the Civil Code, the age difference between the adopter and the adoptee cannot be greater than 45 years, and the actress looks 68.
But in this maze when a door closes a window opens. Article 176.2 of the Civil Code establishes as an exception for age obstacles that the girl “has been in custody for adoption for more than a year or has been under guardianship of the adopter for the same time.” That is to say, that Ana Sandra could be adopted by the famous past this time. With this procedure, Obregón would not appear administratively as a grandmother, but as an adoptive mother.
In this sense, Bautista is categorical in the face of this non-routine case of filiation after a surrogacy process in the United States: “If there is no filiation demand in which the DNA is that of the mother or father, there She is going to be affiliated as this lady’s daughter. It’s impossible.”
The expert sees in this case an easier path to the administrative labyrinth. “I would stay here with the girl with the US passport and when she completed the years of residency for being an American, I would request Spanish residency. And she’s done,” she explained. In this case, it is foreseeable that she would be registered in the registry with the degree of kinship recognized in the United States ruling, that is, mother or grandmother.
