THE POPE HAS called for a universal ban on the “despicable” practice of surrogacy, as he included the “commercialisation” 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, Pope 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 conflict, migration and climate crises and the “immoral” production of nuclear and conventional weapons, Francis delivered a long 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.

He said the life of the unborn child must be protected and not “suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking”.

He added: “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.”

Francis also called for the international community “to prohibit this practice universally”.

Francis has previously voiced the Catholic Church’s opposition to what he has called “uterus for rent”, and some European countries prohibit the practice, including Spain and Italy.

At the same time, however, the Vatican’s doctrine office has made clear that homosexual parents who resort to surrogacy can have their children baptised.

Ireland

Currently, there are no laws in Ireland to govern either domestic or international surrogacy.

Most surrogacies involving Irish people are commercial arrangements undertaken outside the State.

Families have consistently called for government to progress with legislation to provide for parental status in Ireland in international surrogacy arrangements. 

Under Irish law, the biological or genetic father of a child born through surrogacy may apply for a declaration of parentage in respect of the child, but the “intending mother” – because she is not the birth mother of the child – is not entitled to apply for the same declaration of parentage.

Last month, Cabinet approved legislation that provides standards and regulation of reproductive healthcare and fertility technologies in Ireland.

The Bill, which passed second stage in the Dáil in 2022, was paused to allow for the insertion of new provisions in respect of the regulation of international surrogacy agreements and the recognition of certain past surrogacy arrangements.

These provisions will have the potential to provide hundreds of Irish families with a route to formal recognition by the State of surrogacy arrangements they have undertaken, or will undertake, in other jurisdictions.

The proposed law also seeks to ensure that any AHR practices and related areas of research are conducted in a more consistent and standardised way and with the necessary oversight.

It also aims to protect the safety and rights of the child, as well as all various parties involved in a surrogacy arrangement.

The original bill did not include the regulation or provision of international surrogacy.