Surrogacy
48. The Church also takes a stand against the practice of surrogacy, through which the immensely worthy child becomes a mere object.
This would be understating and misunderstanding the human impulse to have a child. Regular readers here will know my first and strongest advocacy would be to adopt living children who currently lack parents.
We also can’t overlook the “objectifying” of children, especially heirs, in human history, even with an honored patriarch such as Abraham. (Cf. Genesis 16:2ff) However, note that the Biblical author assigns blame to the wife.
On this point, Pope Francis’s words have a singular clarity: “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. 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.”[Francis, Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See (8 January 2024)]
Part of this effort must include alternatives for couples who have a legitimate desire for children. Of course, the abuse and dehumanizing of children and women can exist within a marriage and family as easily as without. The question is important: why does a couple desire a child? There are many reasons, some more virtuous than others.
I’m not sure the Church’s emphasis on bearing children is productive in guiding people to a more virtuous consideration of women and children as people of dignity. When conceiving and giving birth to natural children becomes the ends rather than the means to something higher and more grace-filled, much can be lost.
Pope Francis has neglected adoption, as the Church often does. This remains my most serious criticism of Dignitas Infinita.
Click this link to read the DDDF document on the Vatican site.
Catholic Sensibility 