The Vatican lists surrogacy as a threat to world peace
In his “State of the World Address,” Pope Francis called for a global ban on surrogacy, calling the practice “deplorable.”
Money Talks News
Surrogacy advocates reacted with anger and disappointment after Pope Francis called for a global ban on the practice, saying it violates the dignity of women and children.
“I am very sad because there are people around the world who have lovingly built families through surrogacy and may feel that the Pope has disparaged their family and the way they have built it,” President said Barbara Collura and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association.
In his “State of the World” address on Monday, the 87-year-old Catholic church leader described surrogacy as “deplorable” and “based on the exploitation of the mother's material needs.”
“A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract,” the pope said. “Therefore, I express my hope for efforts by the international community to ban this practice worldwide.”
Judith Hoechst, a Denver-area resident whose son was born to a surrogate, said the pope's statement made her angry “as a Catholic and as a woman.”
“It’s insensitive and out of touch with the world,” said Hoechst, a lawyer whose practice focuses on surrogacy and assisted reproduction. “Without God, my son wouldn’t be on this earth, and God doesn’t make mistakes.”
But others applauded the pope's words, including the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network in Pleasant Hill, California, which has campaigned against surrogacy for more than two decades.
“Surrogacy has never been the solution,” said Kallie Fell, executive director of the center. While the organization is sympathetic to couples who long to become parents, she said, “Children are not commodities that can be bought and sold.”
Who chooses surrogacy?
The pope's statement was part of a 45-minute wide-ranging speech he gave on Monday to nearly 200 ambassadors from countries that have diplomatic ties with the Vatican.
Critics of commercial surrogacy say it harms poor women in vulnerable communities, while supporters say it gives women the chance to offer children who are unable to conceive under the protection of a commercial contract.
A number of countries have made compensated surrogacy illegal, as have three US states: Michigan, Nebraska and Louisiana.
Advocates point out that couples may use surrogacy for several reasons, including health risks to the mother during pregnancy or conditions that prevent potential parents from becoming pregnant or carrying children to term. Some couples have experienced repeated miscarriages or unsuccessfully attempted in vitro fertilization and resort to surrogacy as a last resort.
“Nobody wants to use surrogacy,” Collura said. “I don’t know a single person or family who would have wanted that.”
In addition, many same-sex couples look for surrogate mothers to become parents.
“That’s not cavalier,” Collura said. “People don’t just wake up and say they want to do this. You spend months, years preparing. There are so many protections, from lawyers to medical providers. It’s a very tight process.”
“I didn’t think I could suffer another defeat”
As a pediatric nurse, Judith Hoechst regularly helped care for children, and the thought that she might have a difficult time having a child never crossed her mind.
“We are dealing with one miscarriage after another,” Hoechst said. “I had trouble staying pregnant.”
When Hoechst, a non-practicing Catholic, was finally able to give birth to her daughter, she suffered so much blood loss during delivery that she almost died. A few years later, when the couple wanted to have a second child, doctors told Hoechst that her uterus was so damaged that it could endanger her life.
Instead, the couple turned to a surrogate to father their second child, a son who is now 19 years old.
“Surrogacy was our only option other than adoption,” said Hoechst, a board member of RESOLVE, which has worked on reproductive rights legislation in Colorado. “There are a lot of birth mothers who change their minds at the last minute, and I didn’t think I could suffer another loss.”
The pope's words, she said, seemed “out of touch” to her.
“What's better than having a child when you've been struggling with it all these years?” she said.
What impact could the Pope's words have?
A ban on surrogacy would eliminate an important option for LGBTQ+ couples looking to start a family, said Pamela Lannutti, director of the Center for Human Sexuality Studies at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania.
“Many gay men in the United States use surrogacy to become parents,” Lannutti said. “The Pope suggests that the opportunity to create a loving family will be limited not only for some LGBTQ+ couples, but also for many opposite-sex couples who choose surrogacy to create a family.”
Others feared that the pope's call to ban surrogacy would embolden those who oppose the practice, including lawmakers.
“Politically speaking, it fuels those who oppose this type of family-building technology,” said Eric Widra, senior chief medical officer at Shady Grove Fertility in Washington, D.C. “It is often confused with debates about abortion. For uninformed lawmakers, such comments become too part of the general fight against reproductive rights.”
RESOLVE’s Collura agreed.
“I don’t know how much the pope’s statement will influence lawmakers, but it will energize advocates who want to ban surrogacy,” Collura said. “You now have a great ally and will certainly use it.”
Fell said the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network believes commercial surrogacy should be illegal and that all surrogacy pregnancies should be tracked through a national database. At a minimum, she said, the U.S. should close its borders to international surrogacy arrangements and adopt policies similar to those for organ donation.
“We hope that voters, politicians and policymakers will take Pope Francis’ words into account and respond appropriately,” Fell said.
Collura said anyone who opposes surrogacy or in vitro fertilization should refrain from such a practice – but called the idea of banning others from doing so “misguided and harmful.”
“There are Catholics who have built their families this way and feel like their family is seen as less of a family,” Collura said. “My message to these people is: Don’t listen to it. You’ve been through a lot and you should be incredibly grateful and proud for it.”