It is estimated that every sixth or seventh Slovenian couple has trouble conceiving. Medically assisted reproduction is available only to married couples and couples living in cohabitation who, according to current medical knowledge, cannot expect to conceive the baby through sexual intercourse and cannot be assisted by any other infertility treatment. Today, both in vivo and in vitro fertilization are available, both of which may be homologous (use of the couple's reproductive cells) or heterologous (use of one partner's reproductive cell and the donor's reproductive cell). Procedures with donated eggs or semen are allowed for medical reasons only plus donors must choose to donate voluntarily and cannot receive payment for the donation. In some countries, artificial insemination of single women and surrogacy are also available. Surrogacy is an arrangement, often supported by a legal agreement, whereby a woman (the surrogate mother) agrees to bear and give birth to a child for another person or persons, who will become the child's parent(s) after birth. Usually it is a couple, but it can also be an individual who cannot conceive a child in a natural way. Despite the fact that surrogacy is not allowed in Slovenia, Slovenian couples can find surrogate mothers abroad. Single Slovenian women can also seek help at one of the foreign clinics, where the law allows their artificial insemination. This is called fertility tourism and is a form of medical tourism where people travel to a foreign country to undergo one of the infertility treatment procedures. The main reasons for going to a foreign country are a legal ban or unavailability of the desired procedure in the home country, lower costs and shorter queues or simply better quality and thus a higher success rate of clinics in a foreign country.
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