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ROME (AP) — Pope Francis called for a global ban on surrogacy on Monday, equating it with child trafficking at a meeting with ambassadors at the Vatican and stepping up efforts in Italy to pass the West's most restrictive law against a practice carried out by infertile and same-sex mothers becomes. Sex couples become parents.
“I consider deplorable the practice of so-called surrogacy, which represents a serious violation of the dignity of the woman and the child and is based on the exploitation of the material needs of the mother,” Francis said in prepared remarks. “A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.” Therefore, I express my hope for efforts by the international community to ban this practice worldwide.”
Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is pushing for an expanded, blanket ban on surrogacy that would mean prison sentences and heavy fines for parents who want to have children through surrogate mothers abroad. The practice is already banned in Italy and some other European countries.
The pope's comments on surrogacy stood out in a wide-ranging speech on global issues that Francis sought to put on the diplomatic agenda, including a ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and ongoing and growing humanitarian crises in Africa Tensions in Latin America.