Pope Francis called Monday for a universal ban on the “despicable” practice of surrogate motherhood, as he included the “commercialization” of pregnancy in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity.
In a foreign policy address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Francis lamented that 2024 had dawned at a time in history in which peace is “increasingly threatened, weakened and in some part lost.”
Citing Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, migration, climate crises and the “immoral” production of nuclear and conventional weapons, Francis delivered a lengthy laundry list of the ills afflicting humanity and the increasing violation of international humanitarian law that allows them.
But Francis also listed smaller-scale issues that he said were threats to peace and human dignity, including surrogacy. Francis said the life of the unborn child must be protected and not “suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking.”
I am no religious expert, but going by what I remember from church, Jesus was sent here for all of us, so wouldn’t that make the Virgin Mary basically a surrogate?
Technically, but remember that Mary didn’t consent or even know what was happening. Jesus was a rape baby…
@Bonehead Luke 1:38 “'I am the Lord’s servant, Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her.” / Luke 1:46-48 “And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,”
Does not sound like she didn’t know what was going on, or that she didn’t consent…
She was like 13. The best age to get boned by Christianity
Mo and Aisha at 9 - makes me think fundie abrahamic religions don’t care as much about age of consent.
She was already pregnant at that point.
So you’re just going to accept the story from some dude that wrote it years later?
ban on the “despicable” practice of surrogate motherhood.
Wasn’t Mary technically a surrogate?
Oh snap
Consistency isn’t exactly a strong suit for religion over time
“Commercializing pregnancy”
Yeah, allowing my friend living with lupus to have a healthy biological child. They treated the surrogate as a member of the family, even long after the birth. Fuck you, pope.
Why didn’t they just adopt? There’s 100k+ children waiting to be adopted right now in the US. Why go through all the trouble and effort of surrogacy just to have a biological child? Seems weird to me.
Most of those 100k kids waiting to be adopted are older kids. A lot of people want to start with an infant. Not everyone is equipped to adopt a teenager who has been in foster care for years. Then there are people who want bio kids.
Source? My buddy adopted last year and had no problem finding an infant for adoption.
Because adoption isn’t as easy as it sounds. A couple friends of ours started the process 5 or 6 years ago and weren’t having any luck (even after spending tens of thousands of dollars on the process) and weren’t having success so they asked someone we know to be a surrogate for them in 2019 and had their son in 2020. It wasn’t until literally two weeks ago that they finally got placed with their adopted child from several states away from a young pregnant woman who didn’t want to keep the baby. The adoption process costed them significantly more than the surrogacy. They could afford it because one is a physician but this highlights how difficult it is unless you want to adopt an older child who most likely has behavioral issues after being forcefully removed from a bad situation.
It sounds like your buddies specifically wanted a newborn which led to the difficulty. Why? A three, four, or five year old doesn’t meet their standards?
“Unborn child must be protected and not suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking”.
Until he is born that is, right?
Yup, then they get to do the rounds with the priests they keep hiding.
I can kind of see the angle with turning kids into a commodity that only well situated people can afford (if they can’t or don’t want to have one themselves), as it is now.
On the other hand, banning the practice is impractical, intruding on personal choices, and most of all, cruel to couples who can’t conceive a child themselves, be it because of infertility or because they are a non-heterosexual couple.
But then there is also the argument to be made that people should adopt already existing kids instead. Any child that has to grow up in foster care or generally without a loving home is one too many.
Not sure where i stand on this myself actually. People should be allowed free choice of course, but that inevitably leads to this bias towards the rich.
No normal or even poor couple, no matter how good parents they would be, could afford or convince a surrogate mother to bear their child. And allowing this to be a privilege for the rich seems mega fucked.
I don’t think the objection is to the concept of surrogacy as much as it the commerical aspect of it. Kind of like how if it was legal to sell your own organs the poor might be forced by society to do so.
I don’t think he’d have an issue of doing it as a favor based on the wording.
Some quick info on adoption: at least where I live, there aren’t a giant list of babies waiting for someone to adopt them. There are lots of kids (usually age 5+) who need loving homes, but have mental and/or physical special needs, or behavioral issues (due to abuse, etc).
Most people who want to adopt a baby are going to be on a waiting list for a year or more (depending on how selective they are). And this is also cost-prohibitive (anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000, in my area) unless you don’t need an agency.
Yup. In the US, I think there are something like 20 potential adoptive parents qualified for every infant that comes through the private and semi-private systems. There is literally zero “saving” that goes in with healthy infant adoption. If people just don’t want to be pregnant or have some genetic issues (official or not) that they’d rather not pass on, then there’s a place for it (though I wish it were regulate much, much better), but they need to understand that it’s for their own benefit and to just get in line.
We don’t ban things because they’re not affordable enough. We would ban quite a lot of medicine if that were so. This is religious horseshit trying to sweeten itself with a populist angle.
Im not saying we should ban it, I’m saying we should find a way so not rich people have access too. Perhaps introduce some restrictions to that effect, but ultimately it is individual choice.
Also, I am from one of the myriad of places outside the United States that has socialized healthcare.
For the most part we don’t have medicine or treatments that people need to be able to afford. Insurance will cover anything.
I think choosing surrogacy over adoption says something about a person character. To me it says you care more about your genes than the child. And then you have pieces of shit like this russian oligarchs young wife.
I admit that I may be ignorant to parts adoption vs surrogacy, but I don’t like what I have seen online.
Catholic Church saying “look over there that’s terrible” whilst not doing much about the rape and abuse within its own backyard.
Religion once again tackling the important issues…
You figure he’d be on board with creating more kids for Catholic priest to rape and molest.
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No, that’s not what’s happening.
Poor women and women in poor counties are used as baby ovens for the wealthy, or those with the means to rent their wombs. Which is why he specifically refers to it as the “commercialization”.
He’s saying that’s exploitive and immoral as there as children waiting to be adopted. So instead of “renting” a poor women’s womb, adopt a child instead.
Also, FWIW I’m pro-choice, but that doesn’t mean I should pretend everyone who thinks differently is evil.
Opposing abortion isn’t always about a misogynistic need to control women. For some people it’s a genuine belief that life begins at conception, which is what Pope Francis appears to sincerely believe.
That doesn’t extend to everyone, and I’d go so far as to say most of the Evangelical American pro-life movement are just reactionary hateful shitstains who are genuine misogynists that wouldn’t hesitate to get mistress an abortion.
Anyways, just my $0.02
I would highly suggest people look into the international surrogacy programs/companies and their issues. I want to say Radiolab may have done a podcast about it. Basically western couples think they are giving a life changing amount of money to a women in poverty, but in reality the companies pocket most of the money and the women are kept in substandard conditions sometimes.
It’s not something I think we should outright ban, but the industry is in dire need of international attention and regulation.
It is interesting to see the Pope using secular arguments instead of simply saying God won’t approve (which is completely valid from a religious perspective). The invocation of God in any serious opinion is silly, and now even religious leaders know that.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis called Monday for a universal ban on the “despicable” practice of surrogate motherhood, as he included the “commercialization” of pregnancy in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity.
In a foreign policy address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Francis lamented that 2024 had dawned at a time in history in which peace is “increasingly threatened, weakened and in some part lost.”
“I consider despicable 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,” he said.
Francis has previously voiced the Catholic Church’s opposition to what he has called “uterus for rent,” and some European countries prohibit it, including Spain and Italy.
It marked an unusual break with Francis’ usual tendency to spare Moscow direct, public blame for the invasion when expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
He called for an immediate cease-fire, including in Lebanon, the liberation of hostages held in Gaza, and reiterated the Holy See’s position seeking a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians and an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem.
The original article contains 636 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Here come the mental liberals. Liking the pope until he says something that don’t fit with their global homo agenda. Disgusting. All religions are bad! Completely doing mental gymnastics when is Islam killing and terrorising the world. There is no cure for this people
