Pope Francis called for a universal ban on surrogacy Monday in his annual foreign policy address to global Holy See ambassadors at the Vatican, highlighting that the "deplorable" practice is essentially the "commercialization" of pregnancy and likening it to trafficking.
“The path to peace calls for respect for life, for every human life, starting with the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb, which cannot be suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking,” he said.
“In this regard, I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.
"A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.
"Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally."
He added, "At every moment of its existence, human life must be preserved and defended; yet I note with regret, especially in the West, the continued spread of a culture of death, which in the name of a false compassion discards children, the elderly, and the sick."
Surrogacy tourism is especially prevalent in Ukraine, which comprises 25 percent of the world's surrogacy and is one of the few countries that allows surrogacy for foreigners. The director of the children's rights organization, Them Before Us, Katy Faust, appeared on Jack Posobiec's Human Events Daily show in September, where she illustrated how damaging the surrogacy industry really is.
Faust explained that the start of the big fertility industry saw third-world countries “open their doors” to it and women would “rent out their bodies for a year” out of economic desperation. After gaining popularity, countries such as Nepal, India, and Cambodia attempted to adopt the practice but quickly banned big fertility because it is “nothing short of human trafficking” and a “violation of human rights.”
Presently, surrogacy is banned in parts of Europe, including Spain and Italy, AP News reports. However, surrogacy contracts remain common practice in most parts of the United States.
Italy's Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, has been advocating for even stronger restrictions and is pushing for a bill to be passed that would oppose “procreative tourism."
It would be designed to dissuade parents seeking to use a surrogate mother abroad through "deterrent fines and airport controls."
