In his New Year's address to diplomats at the Vatican, Pope Francis called for global action against human surrogate motherhood, saying it is a "grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child". News media around the world gave some prominence to his concern.
In this post I will show how the Pope's concerns are fully supported by human rights groups and feminists of the calibre of Renate Klein and June Bindel.
The AFP agency's report of the Pope's call for action includes this:
In a speech dominated by calls for an end to conflicts around the world, the head of the worldwide Catholic Church said: "The path to peace calls for respect for life."
This began "with the life of the unborn child in the mother's womb, which cannot be suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking", he said.
"In this regard, I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based 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. Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally."
The Pope's words in full on this subject are these:
The path to peace calls for respect for life, for every human life, starting with the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb, which cannot be suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking. In this regard, I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based 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.
Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally. At every moment of its existence, human life must be preserved and defended; yet I note with regret, especially in the West, the continued spread of a culture of death, which in the name of a false compassion discards children, the elderly and the sick.
Exponential growth but unethical all the same
The AFP notes that June 2022, the pope condemned surrogacy as an "inhuman" practice involving the exploitation of women, treating them solely as a "uterus for rent".
Whereas some countries have imposed limits on surrogacy, such as prohibiting women being hired by foreigners to produce a baby —India and Thailand are examples—the commercialisation of the practice has grown exponentially, sometimes under the cover of "altruistic" surrogacy, whereby a woman gives birth to a baby on behalf of another woman or couple but no money changes hands, excluding for expenses, which item becomes the substitute fee for the trade. This is legal in countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Canada, Brazil and Colombia.
Commercial surrogacy outright is permitted in some US states.
The Sojourners magazine has noted that the "Christian community, in general, is divided over the practice of gestational surrogacy and that faith leaders have some catching up to do when it comes to understanding reproductive technologies and articulating moral guidance".
“The fact that theological guidance on this is all over the map suggests that in a lot of our churches and seminaries, we’re not doing a lot of thinking about some of these issues in bioethics,” said Scott Rae, co-author of Outside the Womb: Moral Guidance for Assisted Reproduction, to Sojourners.
What the Pope is responding to has been the focus of women's groups for several years: "the objectification of women, the commodification of the new-born, the trafficking of human beings, and the violation of human dignity of the woman exploited as ‘surrogate mother’ and the child, thus undermining women’s and child's rights", according to the coalition of groups that made representations to the European Parliament in 2022. Coalition members are the European Women’s Lobby, European Network of Migrant Women, International Coalition Against Prostitution, and the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood.
Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation by Renate Klein, a Swiss-born Australian academic, writer, publisher, and feminist health activist, contains the fruit of long study of the outcomes to women and children caught up in the commercialisation of reproduction.
The book's publisher has this to say about its contents:
In Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation Renate Klein details her objections to surrogacy by examining the short- and long-term harms done to the so-called surrogate mothers, egg providers and the female partner in a heterosexual commissioning couple. Klein also looks at the rights of children and compares surrogacy to (forced) adoption practices. She concludes that surrogacy, whether so-called altruistic or commercial can never be ethical.
Feminist campaigns against idea of a 'right' to a baby
Another prominent campaigner against surrogacy—based on her personal research—is British writer, journalist and feminist icon, Julie Bindel. Her research into how surrogacy affects Third World women as victims of contractors from the First World has given her the ability to speak knowledgeably to those in power about the social harm surrogacy promotes. See her account of the state of affairs in her contribution at the Conference for the International Abolition of Surrogacy in the French National Assembly.
In her writing on the subject Bindel offers many insights into the social harm done by those involved in the commodification of human life:
More and more people around the world, from gay couples and heterosexuals with fertility struggles to well-off women who simply do not want to be burdened by pregnancy, are choosing to pay for surrogacy services as a way of accessing parenthood. With “my body, my choice” feminists enthusiastically embracing surrogacy as an act of empowerment and inclusion, the abusive practice of outsourcing pregnancy to underprivileged and marginalised women is becoming widely accepted, and even mainstream.
In public discussions about surrogacy, the hypothetical surrogate mother is always a healthy, happy, young woman who enjoys being pregnant and finds joy in helping an infertile couple have children. She gives birth to a healthy baby without any complications, hands the baby to its “legal” parents without any distress, and goes on her merry way.
Real life is rarely, if ever, this straightforward.
I’m sure there really are women who carry babies for their relatives, friends or even strangers without expecting anything in return and find the experience rewarding.
Yet the overwhelming majority of women who sign up to become a surrogate mother, including those in jurisdictions where commercial surrogacy is illegal, do so because of poverty – the surrogacy industry, in its entirety, is nothing but a reproductive brothel.
Supporters of surrogacy, just like supporters of prostitution, claim that monetary incentive does not equal coercion and that “womb work” is work like any other. But could growing new life in your womb, birthing that life with great risk to your own wellbeing, and then handing it over to the person who commissioned it ever be considered just another type of “work”?
Is the inside of a woman’s body really an acceptable workplace? Can a few atypical examples, where everyone, including the surrogate mother, gains from the experience, allow us to overlook the grave consequences of the commercialisation of wombs, for society in general and women in particular?
Some years ago, during a research trip to California, I met a woman called Jayne.
She told me she once agreed to be a surrogate for a wealthy couple because she was trapped in an abusive marriage with a man in the army, and was desperate to earn some money and leave the house they shared in the military barracks. Treated appallingly from the outset, Jayne was banned from riding a bicycle, having sex, or attending medical appointments alone. She was told what to eat and drink. All of this was written into a legal contract which included an instruction to give up the baby immediately – without ever even holding it. Jayne was also required to undergo a caesarean birth so that the child could be delivered on a date convenient to the commissioning parents.
Untold stories of the 'cow on a farm'
“I felt like a cow on a farm,” she told me. “My body was not mine, it belonged to them. I honestly had never felt so powerless in my life.”
I met so many women, just like Jayne, who have been severely traumatised by their experience as surrogate mothers. Unfortunately, we rarely hear from them. The surrogacy industry and its many supporters focus their attention on the feelings and desires of “commissioning parents”, and fail to pay any attention to the suffering of the women who make it all possible.
People defend those renting wombs saying everyone has a “right” to parenthood. They ask, how can gay men have biological children if not through surrogacy? Wouldn’t it be homophobic to take this opportunity away from them? Also what about women who cannot carry a pregnancy to term for whatever reason, should they never experience motherhood?
Well, for everyone who has the means to pursue surrogacy, including gay couples, adoption is also an option.
Nobody has the right to a biological child, regardless of their sexuality or sex. The use of impoverished women’s bodies for the benefit and convenience of those claiming parenthood as “their human right” is anathema to women’s liberation.
Whether it is altruistic or for-profit, surrogacy is exploitation – it turns the female body into a commodity for hire. Those gushing about the joy surrogacy brings to the lives of commissioning parents, and claiming it is a “human right” to have a biological child, should take some time to consider the many wrongs being done to the women used as surrogates.
— From "Surrogacy: Human right, or just wrong?" Why do so many believe that it is a ‘right’ for anyone to have their own biological child?
From the insights of the likes of Klein and Bindel, and activist groups like Stop Surrogacy Now, we can understand why Pope Francis is alarmed by the risks society is taking in this area. His call for the global abolition of surrogacy is an echo of his pointing to the risks humanity is taking by permitting the spread of nuclear weapons. Just as the second is widely seen as Doomsday material, so should the first be seen as laying the path to the utter degradation of humans and of our society as a whole. Slavery is another curse humans imposed on each other before realising the harm to society of the practice.
Real people, real damage to lives
I want to offer more information about the harm to mother and child that accompanies surrogacy.
The findings collected by the Stop Surrogacy Now organisation are definitive:
We are women and men of diverse ethnic, religious, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds from all regions of the world. We come together to voice our shared concern for women and children who are exploited through surrogacy contract pregnancy arrangements.
Together we affirm the deep longing that many have to be parents. Yet, as with most desires, there must be limits. Human rights provide an important marker for identifying what those limits should be. We believe that surrogacy should be stopped because it is an abuse of women’s and children’s human rights.
Surrogacy often depends on the exploitation of poorer women. In many cases, it is the poor who have to sell and the rich who can afford to buy. These unequal transactions result in consent that is under informed if not uninformed, low payment, coercion, poor health care, and severe risks to the short- and long-term health of women who carry surrogate pregnancies.
The medical process for surrogacy entails risks for the surrogate mother, the young women who sell their eggs, and the children born via the assisted reproductive technologies employed. The risks to women include Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome (OHSS), ovarian torsion, ovarian cysts, chronic pelvic pain, premature menopause, loss of fertility, reproductive cancers, blood clots, kidney disease, stroke, and, in some cases, death. Women who become pregnant with eggs from another woman are at higher risk for pre-eclampsia and high blood pressure.
Children born of assisted reproductive technologies, which are usually employed in surrogacy, also face known health risks that include: preterm birth, stillbirth, low birth weight, fetal anomalies, and higher blood pressure. A surrogate pregnancy intentionally severs the natural maternal bonding that takes places in pregnancy—a bond that medical professionals consistently encourage and promote. The biological link between mother and child is undeniably intimate, and when severed has lasting repercussions felt by both. In places where surrogacy is legalized, this potential harm is institutionalized.
— Source: See here and here
The fact that Pope Francis identifies "the West" as a particular zone of death and harm to human beings in all stages of their life corresponds with the unwillingness of people in Western (and WEIRD) countries to bow to God's law of human conduct, and particularly to accept that God has a plan for each person.
Instead, this is an age of bland consumerism that extends into all sectors of life, and the use of surrogacy denies that it is the human person's privilege to walk in step with Providence. Only inner pain is gained by trying to buck God's loving plan, demanding though it may be.
Finally, we can see in surrogacy another of those cases like the development of nuclear weapons where we have to say: "We have the means to do it, but we should not do it!"
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