Pope Francis, in an annual speech to ambassadors on Monday, called surrogacy a “despicable” practice that should be banned across the board because of its “commercialization” of pregnancy, including the practice amid wars, terrorism and other threats to peace and humanity.
An unborn child should not be “made into an object of human trafficking,” Francis said. He added: “I consider the practice of so-called surrogacy despicable, which represents a serious violation of the dignity of the woman and the child and is based on the exploitation of the mother's material needs.” A child, he said, should never be “the basis of a child.” “Commercial agreement” and called for a global ban on surrogacy “to ban this practice worldwide”.
Surrogacy is already illegal in Italy, and paid surrogacy is also illegal or restricted in much of Europe. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal and several other countries allow surrogacy under certain conditions. Paid surrogacy is legal in some European countries, including Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
Surrogates are often hired in the United States and Canada by Europeans, including same-sex couples, who want to have children, although some American states have banned the practice.
Francis, a constant critic of the destructive effects of consumerism on humanity, is deeply concerned that a profit motive will distort the traditional creation of life. While Francis has generally avoided the culture wars over issues of life and homosexuality to emphasize priorities such as caring for migrants and the poor, he has always upheld church teaching on these issues and maintained a strong opposition to surrogacy and abortion. He equated abortion to “hiring a hitman to solve a problem.”
He also supports Catholic teaching in his opposition to in vitro fertilization on various theological and ethical grounds, including the destruction of unwanted embryos it creates and a more general separation of the reproductive act from the Church's conception of human love.
In June 2022, Francis told a delegation from the Federation of Associations of Catholic Families in Europe that surrogacy is an “inhumane and increasingly widespread practice” in which “women, almost always poor women, are exploited” and children are “treated as commodities.” ”
In 2023, he told another group that while it was “appropriate” to use “the most advanced scientific knowledge and technology” to promote legitimate desires to conceive, “it is wrong to create embryos in a test tube and then suppress them.” “to trade gametes” and to resort to the practice of surrogacy.”
He has also referred to surrogacy in the past as a “womb for rent,” a term often used by Italy's right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who also opposes the practice and also supports the criminalization of Italians who practice surrogacy abroad.
In May, Francis and Ms. Meloni appeared together on stage in Rome at a conference about boosting Italy's low birth rate. Ms. Meloni said it was important to make clear that “birth is not for sale, that the uterus is not for rent, and children are not over-the-counter products that you can choose and then perhaps return.”
In March, Eugenia Roccella, Italy's minister of equal opportunities and family, promised a law to prosecute “womb for rent” in Italy and among Italians abroad.
While the church opposes surrogacy, the Vatican's Office of Ecclesiastical Doctrine has made it clear that children born through surrogacy can be baptized. This position was recently clarified in a statement clarifying that transgender people could be baptized. The same office in recent weeks approved blessings for same-sex couples, with Francis' express approval.
But Francis made clear that he sees modern interpretations of gender that undermine the biological separation of men and women as a threat to human dignity comparable to humanitarian disasters, calling gender theory “extremely dangerous because it exposes differences in their own The claim to make everyone equal is destroyed.”
The pope's comments came during an annual foreign policy address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, which traditionally serves as a lament for all conflicts and injustices in the world. There was a lot of material to work with this year, as he described the new year as a time when peace was “increasingly threatened, weakened and in some cases lost”.
While Francis once hesitated to name Russia as an aggressor in its war with Ukraine, he specifically mentioned the Russian Federation's “large-scale war against Ukraine” as one of his most outspoken comments on the conflict to date.
Francis reiterated his plea for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, lamented Israel's “strong military response” that has killed thousands and sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and reiterated his support for a two-state solution. He also condemned Hamas' attack on Israel “and every case of terrorism and extremism” and called for the release of hostages.