A declaration calling for an international moratorium on surrogacy has been launched at a high-level side event at the UN Human Rights Council at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Source: The Tablet.
The June 22 initiative was led by the governments of Italy and Chile, and its launch was co-hosted by the governments of Italy, Chile, Cameroon and the Holy See, and moderated by Alliance Defending Freedom International.
The declaration sets out a shared commitment to achieving the global abolition of surrogacy in line with international human rights law.
The aim is that an international moratorium on the practice could be a stepping stone to enshrining the abolition of the practice in international law.
“However noble the intention, the practice of surrogacy itself cannot be reconciled with the dignity and rights of the two persons it most directly concerns,” Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio to the UN in Geneva, said at the launch.
“Surrogacy violates the dignity of the child: by making gestation the object of a contract, surrogacy treats a human being as a product to be ordered, delivered, and paid for,” he explained.
“But the human person can never be the basis of a commercial contract. Every child has the right to an origin that is fully human.
“And under the convention on the rights of the child, the child also has the right to preserve his or her identity and as far as possible to know and be cared for by his or her parents.
“Surrogacy equally violates the dignity of the woman. It is rarely the privileged who carry children for others. The market of surrogacy is built overwhelmingly on the material need of women in situations of poverty and economic vulnerability.”
The UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, also said the declaration raised “fundamental concerns” relating to human dignity and the commodification of women and children.
“Fragmented national approaches will facilitate the growth of a global cross-border market that transfers harm onto women and children in more vulnerable jurisdictions,” she warned.
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Holy See supports declaration against surrogacy launched at UN (By Aili Winstanley Channer, The Tablet)
