Pope Francis has called for a universal ban on surrogacy, saying the practice of a woman carrying another person’s child was “deplorable”. Francis said surrogate motherhood represented a grave violation of the mother and child and urged the international community to prohibit the practice.
The 87-year-old pontiff said this in his New Year’s address to diplomats at the Vatican on Monday, January 8, 2024.
According to him, “The path to peace calls for respect for life. This began 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.”
