Argentina’s bishops have hailed the country’s Supreme Court for protecting the rights of a child in a case involving surrogate motherhood.

The court rejected the request of a male couple who contracted the surrogate to be registered as the sole parents of the child at the expense of the birth mother.

Welcoming the “unprecedented exemplary ruling”, the Bishops’ noted the Court’s decision that “the mother is the one who gives birth, regardless of the subjective self-representations and private wishes of third parties.”

The Bishops’ also welcomed the Court urging the nation’s Legislature to “correct the lack of regulation”, so as to take into account the rights of all involved and to limit harm to “the most vulnerable, that is, poor women and children processed as objects of desire”.