A United Nations expert spoke out against the practice of surrogacy at a UN General Assembly event on October 8.
UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, called for a global ban on surrogacy in her remarks, highlighting the harm it poses.
“[Surrogacy] is clearly responsible for inflicting large-scale violence, abuse and exploitation on women and children,” Alsalem said.
What is Surrogacy?
Couples struggling with infertility deserve to be treated with tremendous compassion, love and support. They can easily experience a crisis of meaning, marital struggles, relational difficulties, and spiritual questions and doubts because of infertility.
Today, there are numerous assisted reproductive technologies (ART) available to couples experiencing infertility, including restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy.
Surrogacy is a practice in which a woman (the surrogate mother) becomes pregnant and carries a child for another person or couple (the intended parent(s)).
Genetic surrogacy occurs when the surrogate mother becomes pregnant, normally through artificial insemination, using her own eggs, which are fertilized either with the intended father’s sperm, or with the sperm of a donor.
Gestational surrogacy occurs when the surrogate mother has no genetic relationship with the child. In this case, embryos are created through IVF with the gametes of the intended parents, or the involvement of donor sperm and/or donor eggs.
Nearly all surrogacy arrangements today utilize gestational surrogates to ensure that the surrogate mother has no legal claim on the child upon birth.
Furthermore, surrogacy can be either altruistic or commercial.
In altruistic surrogacy, the surrogate mother is paid no formal fee for her services other than minimal reimbursements for expenses.
In commercial surrogacy (by far the most common type of surrogacy), a woman agrees to contractually carry the child for a large monetary fee – commonly between $30,000 and $60,000 excluding reimbursement for expenses.
The UN Report
The expert officially presented her latest report to the UN General Assembly on October 10. In the report, Alsalem calls for a worldwide ban on all forms of surrogacy because it is the commodification of maternity, human life and treats children as products to be bought and sold.
“An inherent concern in surrogacy lies in the contractual programming of separation between a woman and the child that she carries, which risks treating the child as a passive object of an agreement between adults or as a commodity,” the report states.
The report calls on countries to adopt an international agreement that:
- Prohibits all forms of surrogacy.
- Criminalizes the commissioning of children and its facilitation by surrogacy agencies and clinics.
- Bans surrogacy advertisements.
- Protects women already engaged in surrogacy arrangements through legal support and psychological services.
- Ensures children’s rights to identity, care and protection are upheld.
The Moral and Ethical Problems With Surrogacy
Surrogacy has grown into a global industry valued at $14.4 billion as of 2023. It is expected to grow into a $96.6 billion business by 2033.
As surrogacy grows in popularity, it’s crucially important Christians think about the practice and its deep and problematic ethical implications.
Focus on the Family affirms all surrogacy – genetic, gestational, altruistic and contractual – is morally wrong. This is true for four reasons.
First, we know God created marriage, sex, conception, and childbirth to function as interwoven events of a single natural continuum. Surrogacy artificially and intentionally separates these acts and introduces a third-party into the marital procreative union, thereby rupturing God’s design for marriage (Genesis 2:24).
Second, surrogacy commercializes procreation and childbearing, turning the mother-child relationship into a “womb for hire.” Surrogacy transforms the procreative process (what is supposed to be a relationship of love and nurture) into the production, buying and selling of children.
Third, surrogacy intentionally inflicts a lasting wound on a child. In the womb, every child develops a unique bond with its mother who carries it for nine months, which research shows is instrumental in the child’s healthy development. Every surrogate arrangement immediately ruptures that fundamental mother-child bond upon birth, ripping the child away from the only mother it has ever known.
Fourth, surrogacy is increasingly used to create intentionally motherless children as same-sex couples and single men use surrogacy as a method of acquiring and purchasing children.
For all the forgoing reasons, surrogacy should not be accepted as a moral practice for Christians, or anyone for that matter. We thank UN Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem for calling attention to this increasingly important issue.
Related articles and resources:
Perspectives on Surrogate Motherhood
Male ‘Throuple’ Buys Toddler from Quebec Government
Florida to Regulate Surrogacy After Pennsylvania Sex Offender Purchases Baby
When Fertility Treatments Don’t Treat Infertility
Photo from Alliance Defending Freedom.
