Oh, Good, The Pope Has Thoughts On Surrogate Pregnancies.
A celibate man at the head of a church infamous for its sexual abuse scandals declared surrogacy deplorable and worthy of banishment.
Pope Francis is not just spiritual head to 1.35 billion Catholics, but he is also the head of state for Vatican City, a part of Rome that is a sovereign nation. They have their own government, guard force, diplomats, so on and so forth. Italy, the surrounding home of the Vatican, is currently run by a fascist party wanting to return to the good old days of Benito Mussolini (or something to that effect). Not a word on that, though, because they share similar social goals. Instead, this is apparently what is deplorable.
The Catholic Church’s record when it comes to sexual abuse, good parenting, and the moral high ground is decidedly mixed. Notwithstanding that, it is stunning that a faith so rigid on the grounds of “life,” including no death penalty, no birth control, and no abortion, has a problem with a method of bringing life into the world for parents who want children but whose options may be…limited. Any moral framework that says that a child raped by an adult and impregnated must carry that child to term (so they can be celebrated as a symbol of motherhood and the “sanctity of life, the child’s life be damned), but rejects loving, married couples from using a surrogate to provide them children where they would otherwise be unable to do so is fatally flawed.
In fact, it could be argued quite logically that the story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis is the very definition of a surrogate pregnancy!
Sarah was unable to conceive. She knew Abraham desperately wanted a child. In Genesis 16, she uses her Egyptian servant Hagar as, wait for it, a surrogate in place of herself to provide Abraham with the child he desperately craved. That she later cast Hagar and the child out in jealously is a completely different story, but is that really much different than a couple arranging with someone to bear a child for them? I understand there’s a lot of socioeconomic concerns, including the potential control and abuse of poor women as surrogates, but at the same time, there’s also friends and family who volunteer, without compensation, to help provide a child to those they love. My wife and I even received such an offer once earlier in our marriage when it was a problem for us.
Regulating surrogacy is a healthy and wise thing to do, but to call it deplorable and urge its ban while, in the next breath, arguing that those who are forcibly impregnated or carrying a fetus that is incapable of surviving because it developed without vital organs that they must follow through to the bitter end, no matter if they are likely to die from doing so or be rendered sterile, is astonishingly ignorant about what it means to hold all life sacred. It lacks compassion, it lacks grace, it lacks humanity. Like so many other religious proclamations, this is ultimately aimed at protecting a heteronormative, patriarchal power structure. And with its track record, the Catholic Church is the last institution I want to hear from on this issue. One look at the photo at the top is all you need to know.
Well said!