Surrogacy: Having a child at any price?

The concept of human dignity is fundamental to Western civilization, a successful synthesis of Greek thought, Roman law and Judeo-Christian ethics.

The philosopher of Königsberg, Immanuel Kant, recalled that man has no value, but dignity, since any value can be measured and calculated in comparison with others: dignity, instead, is that property by which a being is excluded from any calculation, because he himself is the measure of the calculation.

Any human being - worthy by the mere fact of being so - can never be objectified or used as an instrument at the service of ends foreign to him. Every member of the human species, because of his ontological dignity, is not only an end in himself for himself, but an end in himself objectively and, therefore, also for all others.

Reproductive service or human instrumentalization?

Sometimes, theoretical disquisitions are not well understood when confronted with the most immediate social reality: people, relatives or friends, who resort to surrogacy to have a child. Overcoming mixed feelings, the brief messages of social networks or party positions, it is worth reflecting calmly on this phenomenon of our days to evaluate surrogacy in its relationship with the dignity of the surrogate and of the gestated human being.

In 2017, the Bioethics Committee of Spain. faced, with rigor and success, the, This is a sensitive issue. In its well-founded report, the committee of experts stated that “some understand, also within this Committee, that any form of surrogacy is a form of trafficking in women because it involves instrumentalizing the woman to procure a child for someone else.”.

Necessary bodies, expendable people

The truth is that, if we contrast the role of the pregnant woman (for money or altruistically) with what is intended, it is obvious that she is being used as an instrument at the service of other people's ends. "the surrogacy means -The committee goes on to say a real exercise of alienation to satisfy the desire of another person”.

And the report itself adds: “Some consider that a woman who lends her body to bear another's child consents to being reduced to the status of a mere instrument by a third party. It is obvious that we all consent to a certain instrumentalization when we render our services in exchange for payment. But, unless the conditions of this exchange are abusive, we do not consider the service provider to be a mere instrument in the hands of the one who pays him”.

In many cases, the instrumental nature of the pregnant woman, often poor women who resort to this practice for subsistence, in conditions similar to those of animal production farms, has been revealed.

Europe takes the floor

And considering the dubious nature, at least, of surrogacy in terms of the dignity of the surrogate mother and the dignity of the surrogate mother, it is not surprising that the surrogate mother is a woman who is not a surrogate mother. the gestated creature, international bodies with a broader view have expressed concern about this practice. For example, the European Parliament in a 2015 report rejected. “the practice of surrogate pregnancy, which is contrary to the human dignity of women, since their bodies and reproductive functions are used as a raw material”.

Years later, on the occasion of the war in Ukraine (which, by the way, is a key country in the international surrogacy industry), the European Parliament passed a Resolution on May 5, 2022 that “condemns the practice of surrogacy, which can expose women all over the world to exploitation, particularly those who are poorer and in situations of vulnerability, such as in the context of war; calls on the Union and its Member States to pay particular attention to the protection of women who are in a vulnerable situation, such as in the context of war; calls on the Union and its Member States to pay particular attention to the protection of women who are in a vulnerable situation, such as in the context of war; calls on the Union and its Member States to pay special attention to the protection of surrogate mothers during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period, and that they respect all their rights, as well as those of the newborns”.

Legalizing does not put out the fire

Perhaps because of this there is a certain European consensus in which quite a number of countries (such as Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Slovakia) prohibit surrogacy in their territories.

This prohibition has on several occasions confronted them with a dramatic legal situation, when they find within their borders citizens who left their countries and return to the national territory with a baby obtained through this illegal practice: national law (as well as the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights) has had to give an urgent response to this fait accompli in order to legally protect a minor who has no responsibility in the fact of being - thanks to a gestation contract which, evidently, she did not sign - in a kind of legal limbo.

Against the intuitive conclusion that the legalization of surrogacy (at least the altruistic and voluntary one) would put an end to these personal dramas, the report of the Spanish Committee already mentioned warns that “It must be taken into account that the legalization of surrogacy in a country automatically brings with it an increase in demand, because people who did not contemplate this possibility in their horizon, begin to take it into consideration as soon as it is offered. It is clear to no one that the surrogacy altruistic character, it is impossible for it to cover a demand that would foreseeably grow with its legalization”. Demand that, in addition (with prices in sight), will always be tempted to go to the “contraband market”.

Not every desire creates a right

Precisely for this reason, it makes even more sense to defend the “cancellation” of surrogacy, just as the abolition of slavery was achieved many years ago: that is why a group of experts from all over the world signed the Casablanca Declaration in which we request the States of the world to “the prohibition of surrogate motherhood in all its modalities and types, whether remunerated or not, and the implementation of measures to combat this practice”.

Many adults are subordinating entitlement to their feelings. As University of California professor Robert Lopez said in a celebrated 2016 testimony, with these potential legal changes “The child changes in the eyes of the law. He goes from being a person with rights to being an object of other people's rights. Children have rights; they do not exist to satisfy adults (...). No one has a right to another person. Is the pain of the child the price we pay to satisfy the demands of adults?”.