Résumé

La vie dans une société moderne, technologiquement développée, offre une variété de choix en matière de reproduction et de techniques médicales, allant de la contraception à l’avortement, en passant par l’assistance médicale à la procréation, la congélation d’ovules, la cryoconservation d’embryons, le don d’embryons et la maternité de substitution. Les possibilités médicales et juridiques de devenir parent offrent aux couples beaucoup plus d’options que la conception biologique pure. Tous ces choix ne sont pas juridiquement reconnus dans le monde entier, y compris en Serbie. Les principales questions juridiques analysées dans ce chapitre sont les aspects juridiques de l’assistance médicale à la procréation, les tentatives de légalisation des accords de maternité de substitution en Serbie et les défis auxquels la Serbie est confrontée en raison de son faible taux de natalité.

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, when lifestyles have dramatically changed, levels of interest and willingness in becoming a parent, especially at a younger age, have started to decrease; this is especially true for women, who have seen a massive shift from being housewives taking care of children and homes, to having full-time careers. A lifestyle full of daily stressful events has led women to postpone their readiness for motherhood, and their decisions to conceive and become parents, until a later age than was usual in the past; sometimes this will not be until their late thirties. Apart from the lifestyle changes, the reasons for this could be numerous, and not only biological but sociological, such as a lack of time to find an appropriate partner and dedicate time to a relationship, a reluctance to sustain a decrease in salary due to antenatal care, after-birth care and other factors. Modern lifestyles have also influenced changes to societies which strive for progress, technological and medical development, and the provision of a variety of contemporary reproductive choices and medical techniques, including contraception, abortion, biomedical assisted reproduction, egg freezing, embryo cryopreservation, embryo donation and surrogacy. The medical and legal possibilities of becoming a parent provide couples with many more options other than pure biological conception. Not all of these choices have equally legal recognition worldwide, or in Serbia.