COMMENTARY: Calling for an international ban on surrogacy is a good example of the Petrine office calling attention to a moral issue of truly international scope.
Jennifer Roback Morse January 11, 2024 at National Catholic Register
Pope Francis shook the world on Monday when he called for an international ban on gestational surrogacy.
In his annual audience with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, he called surrogacy “deplorable,” and a “grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child.” I thank him for this clear and correct statement.
I have written frequently about surrogacy. I have interviewed several experts on the subject, including Katy Faust, Jennifer Lahl and Stephanie Gray Conners. This article from 2016, “Why Everyone Should Oppose Surrogacy,” summarizes my views: Surrogacy has something to offend everyone.
Pro-woman reasons to oppose surrogacy include the very things that Pope Francis mentioned: its objectification of women and the broken bonds between the gestational mother and the child. In addition, I would add that surrogate mothers have fewer rights than mothers placing their babies for adoption.
The law surrounding adoption recognizes that women bond with their babies during pregnancy. Women cannot fully anticipate how they will really feel once their baby is born. Even women determined to release their child for adoption, even women who have signed contracts, sometimes change their minds after the baby has been placed in her arms. The law recognizes this reality: A mother is generally allowed a period of time during which she can change her mind and keep the baby.
Is it unimaginable that surrogate mothers might likewise attach to the child? Is it good public policy to insist on her hardening her heart, so she can fulfill the terms of her contract? The law surrounding surrogacy denies the reality that women normally and naturally form emotional attachments with their babies. Denying surrogate mothers the right to change their minds is, quite simply, inhuman.
Pro-life reasons: Every surrogacy procedure creates tiny human beings. The “extra” embryos that are aborted or frozen indefinitely are just as human as the ones selected for life.
Pro-child reasons: There are both medical and psychological risks to children conceived through artificial means. The pamphlet summarizes the medical issues. Babies conceived through artificial procedures are at elevated risks for premature birth, low birth weight, cerebral palsy and other physical complications.
And we have barely begun to consider the psychological issues. Will the normal process of infant attachment, which begins in utero, transfer seamlessly to the commissioning parents? We have no idea.
About the Ruth Institute
The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.
Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.
To schedule an interview with Dr. Morse, contact media@ruthinstitute.org.
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