Pope Francis called Monday for a universal ban on the “despicable” practice of surrogate motherhood, as he included the “commercialization” of pregnancy in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity.
In a foreign policy address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Francis lamented that 2024 had dawned at a time in history in which peace is “increasingly threatened, weakened and in some part lost.”
Citing Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, migration, climate crises and the “immoral” production of nuclear and conventional weapons, Francis delivered a lengthy laundry list of the ills afflicting humanity and the increasing violation of international humanitarian law that allows them.
But Francis also listed smaller-scale issues that he said were threats to peace and human dignity, including surrogacy. Francis said the life of the unborn child must be protected and not “suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking.”
I can kind of see the angle with turning kids into a commodity that only well situated people can afford (if they can’t or don’t want to have one themselves), as it is now.
On the other hand, banning the practice is impractical, intruding on personal choices, and most of all, cruel to couples who can’t conceive a child themselves, be it because of infertility or because they are a non-heterosexual couple.
But then there is also the argument to be made that people should adopt already existing kids instead. Any child that has to grow up in foster care or generally without a loving home is one too many.
Not sure where i stand on this myself actually. People should be allowed free choice of course, but that inevitably leads to this bias towards the rich.
No normal or even poor couple, no matter how good parents they would be, could afford or convince a surrogate mother to bear their child. And allowing this to be a privilege for the rich seems mega fucked.