ROME — The Vatican has issued a stinging condemnation of the “deplorable” practice of human surrogacy, calling for its universal prohibition.
In its declaration titled Dignitas Infinita, released Monday, the Vatican’s doctrinal office (DDF) said that surrogacy reduces the child to the status of “a mere object.”
The text goes on to denounce “so-called surrogate motherhood,” which disrespects human life, turning the unborn child in the mother’s womb into “an object of trafficking.”
Surrogacy “represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child,” it asserts, and relies on “the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.”
“A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract,” the declaration states, citing Pope Francis.
A baby handed over to Pope Francis to bless grabs onto his cross as he arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019 (Gregorio Borgia/AP).
Every human child possesses an “intangible dignity” that is clearly expressed at every stage of his or her life, the DDF declares, from the very “moment of conception.”
Because of this unalienable dignity, it continues, “the child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”
The legitimate desire to have a child “cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” the text contends.
Along with the child, surrogacy also violates the dignity of the woman, the document continues, “whether she is coerced into it or chooses to subject herself to it freely.”
In this practice, “the woman is detached from the child growing in her and becomes a mere means subservient to the arbitrary gain or desire of others,” it states, which contrasts in every way with “the fundamental dignity of every human being and with each person’s right to be recognized always individually and never as an instrument for another.”
Just last week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer lifted a ban on “compensated surrogacy” in the state, meaning that women can now be hired to carry a pregnancy and deliver a child for another family.
In this photo provided by the Michigan Executive Office of the Governor, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks during a news conference Friday, May 29, 2020, in Lansing, Mich. (Michigan Executive Office of the Governor via AP)
The Michigan Catholic Conference issued a sharp criticism of the move, noting that it will exploit poor and vulnerable women.
President of the Michigan Catholic Conference, Paul Long, warned that the change in Michigan law will allow the wealthy to obtain a child “at the expense of women in financial need.”
“For-profit surrogacy contracts that pay females for the use of their reproductive means violate the inherent dignity of women and unethically allow children to be the subject of a contract,” Long stated.
Legalizing compensated surrogacy will likely produce a “surge in surrogacy agencies and attorneys whose work is built around negotiating contracts between couples or individuals with means and vulnerable, cash-strapped young women for the conception, birth, and forfeit of a child,” the Michigan Catholic Conference declared.
The Vatican’s new declaration addresses the theme of surrogacy in the broader context of human dignity, which underlies “the primacy of the human person and the protection of human rights.”
