In remarks (full text) yesterday at his Audience with the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See for the Presentation of Greetings for the New Year, Pope Francis addressed a wide range of issues. Among those making news was his call for a ban on surrogate motherhood. The Pope said in part:
The path to peace calls for respect for life, for every human life, starting with the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb, which cannot be suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking. In this regard, I deem deplorable 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. A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract. Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally.
AP reports on the Pope's remarks. The Pope's call echoes the position taken in 1987 by Pope John Paul II in Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day (full text).
