Pope Francis calls for surrogacy ban

[Pres Mike]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/world/pope-ban-surrogacy/index.html

Pope Francis has called for a universal ban on surrogacy, calling the practice “deplorable” in a speech in Vatican City on Monday.

I'll admit, I never put much though into this. But I have to agree. Its almost always a weathy couple who pays a poor woman, taking advantage of her. The mother-child bond that develops is destroyed at birth. Its a privilege of the rich.

It goes against the idea of a nuclear family, the best family unit. And we should encourage people to marry and start families young.

Corrected typo in thread title.--Nathan

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is ridiculous.

[wnwnwn]

It has been the church stance for years.
Also, some progressives have a similar position, as they see paid surrogacy as a form of explotation of women.

[afleitch]

It has been the church stance for years.
Also, some progressives have a similar position, as they see paid surrogacy as a form of explotation of women.

Paid surrogacy as an arrangement (not legal in the UK for example), is very different from unpaid and altruistic surrogacy. Even paid surrogacy when strictly 'compensatory'; funding scans, healthcare and post-natal care etc is very different from a transactional arrangement.

Surrogacy arrangements are increasingly 'familial' in the sense that family members or close friends offer to be surrogates. They are not contractual, or exploitative.

Obfuscation of the two is often deliberate. Indeed, the Pope appears to have done the same because it's much harder to moralise against a sister carrying a child for her sister who had ovarian cancer as a private and close arrangement between them, and to accept that women can have both agency and be altruistic in their agency.

[Blue3]

I agree with criticism of the capitalism exploitation of it.

I disagree with it for the entire concept, but I know that goes back to the same fundamentals that the Catholic Church holds - which is also why masturbation, non-vaginal sex, condoms, and gay sex are all seen as wrong.[/i] Life has to come from sex, and all sex has to be “open to life,” according to one of their modern principles (from which flows the beliefs most people have an issue with).

[wnwnwn]

I agree with criticism of the capitalism exploitation of it.

I disagree with it for the entire concept, but I know that goes back to the same fundamentals that the Catholic Church holds - which is also why masturbation, non-vaginal sex, condoms, and gay sex are all seen as wrong. Life has to come from sex, and all sex has to be “open to life,” according to one of their modern principles (from which flows the beliefs most people have an issue with).

The church is also agaisnt in vitro fertilization

[Antonio the Sixth]

Commercial surrogacy should be outlawed but altruistic surrogacy is fine (moderate hero, sane)

[Blue3]

I agree with criticism of the capitalism exploitation of it.

I disagree with it for the entire concept, but I know that goes back to the same fundamentals that the Catholic Church holds - which is also why masturbation, non-vaginal sex, condoms, and gay sex are all seen as wrong. Life has to come from sex, and all sex has to be “open to life,” according to one of their modern principles (from which flows the beliefs most people have an issue with).

The church is also agaisnt in vitro fertilization

Yup. All the church's most controversial beliefs go back to that principle I bolded. And that's not just my take, that's what my Catholic high school explicitly taught too.

Commercial surrogacy should be outlawed but altruistic surrogacy is fine (moderate hero, sane)

Agree.

[Tintrlvr]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/world/pope-ban-surrogacy/index.html

Pope Francis has called for a universal ban on surrogacy, calling the practice “deplorable” in a speech in Vatican City on Monday.

I'll admit, I never put much though into this. But I have to agree. Its almost always a weathy couple who pays a poor woman, taking advantage of her. The mother-child bond that develops is destroyed at birth. Its a privilege of the rich.

It goes against the idea of a nuclear family, the best family unit. And we should encourage people to marry and start families young.

As someone currently having a child through surrogacy, at least in the United States, it is 100% not "poor women" who serve as surrogates. Indeed, generally speaking, poor women are not allowed to serve as surrogates in the United States as there is heavy screening against women who are at all coerced, and no one with financial need is permitted to serve as a surrogate. The typical profile is a woman in her mid-to-late 20s, married, with at least one child of her own, with a stable job with a high income and a husband who also has a high income, who is doing surrogacy for the purpose of earning extra cash to spend on luxuries.

By way of example (changing a bunch of facts to equivalents to make this not identifiable), our surrogate is a 28-year-old nurse living in Madison, Alabama with two children whose 31-year-old husband is an engineer with a NASA contractor in Huntsville with an HHI around $200,000 and who plans to use the payments from surrogacy to install a pool in their home. They are not atypical at all for US surrogates.

Of course, international surrogacy can sometimes be more exploitative, and the rules are more lax in some countries, although the countries with the most exploitative practices for international surrogacy (such as India and Ukraine) have declined dramatically in the last decade due to improved regulation.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This is news? The Church in general has always been against surrogacy for the usual suite of Catholic bioethical reasons, and Pope Francis in particular is going to be especially bearish on the practice because of its association with exploitative development economics in the parts of the world he cares about. It's neither surprising nor going to change many people's minds.

[dead0man]

I'll admit, I never put much though into this. But I have to agree. Its almost always a weathy couple who pays a poor woman, taking advantage of her. The mother-child bond that develops is destroyed at birth. Its a privilege of the rich.

unless poor women are forced into doing it, this isn't a problem.  The poor person gets money that they need, the wealthy couple get a child.  It's a win-win (just like all fair trade).

It goes against the idea of a nuclear family, the best family unit. And we should encourage people to marry and start families young.

unless they can't have kids, in which case, 'eff passing on your genes parents, you get to adopt.

[Pres Mike]

I'll admit, I never put much though into this. But I have to agree. Its almost always a weathy couple who pays a poor woman, taking advantage of her. The mother-child bond that develops is destroyed at birth. Its a privilege of the rich.

unless poor women are forced into doing it, this isn't a problem.  The poor person gets money that they need, the wealthy couple get a child.  It's a win-win (just like all fair trade).

It goes against the idea of a nuclear family, the best family unit. And we should encourage people to marry and start families young.

unless they can't have kids, in which case, 'eff passing on your genes parents, you get to adopt.

Probably wouldn't happen unless someone was in dire financial need.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

This is a time where I agree with the position of the Catholic Church.  Surrogacy is not a healthy practice or something to be desired.  Neither is in vitro fertilization (especially as it creates extra embryos that will be destroyed or frozen).  On the other hand, I'm OK with "embryo adoption" as it's using lives that were already created.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Right to commercial surrogacy is basically the sole political issue that will really motivate me to do just about anything. Good riddance to any backwards anti-family institution that opposes it. Its opponents are the enemies of freedom, and I actively wish for them to suffer until they repent their evil ways.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

I agree with Francis.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Since we have someone in this thread who is sharing a personal experience with surrogacy, those of us who oppose, dislike, or have qualms about the practice should take care to be compassionate or at least polite about the rhetoric and comparisons we use. Thanks.

[Vosem]

Vile and unconscionable positioning here, amounting to a demand that certain people either do not form families or do not help others to do so.

[TheReckoning]

Vile and unconscionable positioning here, amounting to a demand that certain people either do not form families or do not help others to do so.

What’s your opinion of Catholicism, generally? Relative to other religions?

[Ferguson97]

Opposition to surrogacy is, at best, rooted in ignorance. There is no reasonable argument in favor of banning it.