Press release by The
Iona Institute

State
must consider why most European countries ban surrogate
motherhood

September
26, 2013 
– In light of today’s ruling by the European Court of Justice that a woman who
had a child via a surrogate mother is not entitled to adoption leave, the
Government must now consider the excellent reasons why most European countries
ban surrogacy outright.

The
right of countries to prohibit surrogacy has been upheld by the European Court
of Human Rights.

Most
European countries ban surrogacy for two main reasons.

1.   
Surrogacy
divides or ‘splits’ motherhood between two or more women. It creates an
automatic ambiguity about who the mother of a child really is. It is a violation
of the time honoured principle in law that ‘the mother is always
certain’.

2.   
The
practice is almost inherently exploitative. In many cases surrogacy involves
financial payment and it is normally economically disadvantaged women who offer
their wombs to better–off commissioning couples or
individuals.

Surrogacy
is sometimes undertaken as an act of generosity, but is an emotional and legal
minefield for all concerned, particularly for the child. Even in European
countries where non–commercial surrogacy is legal, the surrogacy contract is
often not enforceable in law for that reason.  

The
practice of surrogacy forces us to ask whether the ‘true’ mother is the birth
(or surrogate) mother, the genetic mother, or if the woman who raises the child
is different from the genetic mother, the ‘social mother’?

Whose
name should appear on the birth cert? Some people argue it should be neither the
surrogate mother nor the genetic mother but whoever has commissioned the child –
the so-called ‘intentional’ parents. (In the case of the woman who took her case
to the ECJ, her name rather than that of the birth mother appears on her child’s
birth cert).

This
would officially authorise the falsification of birth
certs.

For
these and other reasons, many European countries ban surrogacy and egg donation
outright, including France, Austria, Germany, Italy and Norway, and their right
to do so has been upheld by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Iona
Institute’s recently published paper, ‘The Ethical Case Against Surrogate
Motherhood’ examines the matter in detail.

ENDS

Notes to
Editors

1. The Iona
Institute is a pro-marriage, pro-family organisation.

2. The Iona’s
Institute’s new paper on surrogacy can be found here.

3. Surrogacy is
sometimes compared with adoption but is in fact entirely different. In the case
of adoption a child already exists who is in need of a loving home. In the case
of surrogacy, the child does not yet exist and it is deliberately intended to
separate the child from its birth mother before it is even conceived.  As our
paper argues: ‘In treatment for infertility, the aim is to obtain a pregnancy or
baby for the infertile parent; in adoption the opposite occurs: the aim is to
obtain a family for the baby or child’.