Australian bishops call for surrogacy ban

This includes “altruistic” arrangements, the bishops said in a letter highlighting the “profound harms” of the practice. 

“The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference calls on the Law Reform Commission to recommend the prohibition of all forms of surrogacy in Australia,” the bishops wrote. The commission is carrying out a review of surrogacy laws in Australia.

“A woman is not a machine for reproduction,” the bishops said. “She is a person made in the image of God, called to bear life with love, freedom, and dignity.

“Surrogacy reduces this sacred role [of motherhood] to a service contract – an arrangement that denies the women’s full humanity,” the letter stated. “Surrogacy attempts to divide a woman’s body from her identity, as though she could be a vessel without being a mother.” 

Submitted to the commission on July 9 by Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Tony Percy, the conference’s delegate for life issues, the letter asserts that current laws fail to protect women and children from exploitation and trauma, emphasising that children “have no voice” in surrogacy arrangements and deserve to be “received in love, not produced as part of a contractual arrangement”.

“While the pain of infertility is real and deserving of compassion, not all responses to suffering are just. Surrogacy introduces new and profound harms,” the bishops said in the letter, noting the practice places both women and children at heightened risk for medical and emotional trauma. 

“For children,” the letter stated, “it breaches core human rights, including identity, parentage and protection from commodification, which are rights affirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.” 

Commercial surrogacy, where surrogate mothers are paid to carry the child, is illegal in Australia. Only “altruistic” surrogacy, where the mother’s pregnancy expenses are covered but she makes no profit, is considered lawful. 

The bishops expressed concern that although commercial surrogacy is banned in Australia, including overseas arrangements in several jurisdictions, these laws are rarely enforced.

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Australian bishops call on government to enforce country’s surrogacy ban | Catholic News Agency (By Madalaine Elhabbal/CNA)