CV NEWS FEED // Days after Pope Francis called for a universal ban of surrogacy, Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota supported the pope’s condemnation of the practice, emphasizing that “surrogacy always does grave injustice” to all involved.
On January 8, Pope Francis called surrogacy “despicable” during the annual meeting with global ambassadors, denouncing how the practice makes children into commodities and the woman’s womb “an object of trafficking.” He then called upon all countries to ban the practice of surrogacy.
In agreement with the pope, Bishop Barron issued a statement as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth.
“The desire to utilize surrogacy might feel like the desire to form a family naturally,” Barron stated on January 10, “but no matter how well-intentioned, surrogacy always does grave injustice to the child, any discarded embryos (who are our fellow human beings), the commodified birth mother, and the loving union of the spouses.”
“Surrogacy represents the commodification and instrumentalization of a woman’s body, treating her as a ‘carrier’ rather than a human person,” Barron’s statement read. “And just as troubling is the fact that the child is reduced to terms of buying and selling as an object of human trafficking.”
“Pope Francis strongly condemned the practice of surrogacy calling it ‘a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child.’ He emphasized that a child is a gift and as such can ‘never (be) the basis of a commercial contract,’” Barron recalled:
The commercialization of women and children in surrogacy is underlined by the belief that there is a right to have a child. The child becomes an object for the fulfillment of one’s desires instead of a person to be cherished.
In this way, the genuine right of the child to be conceived through the love of his or her parents is overlooked in favor of “the right to have a child by any means necessary.” We must avoid this way of thinking and answer the call to respect human life, beginning with the unborn child.
While Barron affirmed that no adult has a “right to have a child” or is entitled to children, he emphasized that the Church has a duty to accompany those who suffer from infertility and child loss.
“It might be the case that couples earnestly want to have children without resorting to surrogacy, but painful and even life-threatening medical obstacles make childbirth hazardous or impossible,” Barron continued. “The serious prospect of a life without biological children has been dismissed by some, but we have a responsibility to accompany these couples in their suffering.”
“The Church teaches that married couples are not obliged to actually have children, but to be open to any life that might be the fruit of their union,” Barron concluded:
The desire to utilize surrogacy might feel like the desire to form a family naturally, but no matter how well-intentioned, surrogacy always does grave injustice to the child, any discarded embryos (who are our fellow human beings), the commodified birth mother, and the loving union of the spouses.
According to a recent article by a woman born via surrogacy, the effects of the controversial practice on the children it produces are devastating and can last a lifetime. Recent studies support that claim.
As previously reported by CatholicVote, surrogacy and in vitro fertilization have created grave bioethical consequences as well. During the processes of IVF and surrogacy, “unwanted” embryos who do not meet the adults’ standards are often frozen for later surrogacy use by another couple or for experimentation, or they are simply destroyed.
In the United States alone, over one million embryos are currently frozen, according to the National Embryo Donation Center.
