The Vatican, in collaboration with the Caritas in Veritate Foundation and with the support of the Permanent Representation of Italy and the Sovereign Order of Malta, organized a conference at the United Nations in Geneva on the theme: "At What Cost? Towards the Abolition of Surrogacy". Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, the Holy See's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, spoke at this crucial event, calling on the international community to act to end this practice.
The Fundamental Difference Between Adoption and Surrogacy
Adoption and surrogacy are often wrongly compared. While adoption seeks to provide a home for children deprived of their biological parents, surrogacy, on the other hand, aims to satisfy adults' desire to become parents, sometimes at the cost of commodifying human life. As Archbishop Balestrero emphasized, adoption aims to fill a child's lack, while surrogacy responds to the needs of adults, often resorting to means contrary to human dignity.
Indeed, surrogacy, in Balestrero's words, "transforms children into products and women into instruments of production". This process reduces the child to an object of desire, rather than a subject of love. The result is an inversion of moral values, where the child's interest takes a back seat to the desires of adults.
An Exploitation of Women and Children
Surrogacy leads to blatant exploitation of women, particularly those living in precarious economic conditions. These women, generally in vulnerable situations, are used by wealthy clients to satisfy their desire for a child. This practice resembles a new form of modern servitude, where a woman's body is exploited and fragmented.
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The Holy See also condemns surrogacy for the profound consequences it generates on moral, social, and psychological levels. The act of carrying a child creates a unique bond between mother and child, a natural and intimate bond that cannot be neglected or commercialized. By depriving a mother of this bond, surrogacy fractures motherhood into three distinct roles: the genetic mother, the gestational mother, and the social mother. This fragmentation poses major ethical questions and often leads to psychological trauma for all parties involved, including the child.
A Violation of Human Dignity and Christian Morality
Legally, surrogacy is a practice that crosses national borders, encouraging "reproductive tourism". Divergent laws from one country to another allow clients to circumvent prohibitions in their home countries, thereby exploiting women in other countries with more permissive legislation.
The Holy See insists that the rights of the child must be prioritized. Every child has the right to be born in a context that respects his or her dignity and the dignity of the person who brings him or her into the world. No person should be used as a means to achieve a personal objective, especially not children, who deserve to be welcomed as gifts from God, not as objects of consumption.