Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia, the Holy See's permanent observer to the UN, stated that surrogacy violates the dignity and rights of women and children. The Archbishop delivered his statement during a side event at the UN's 70th commission on the status of women, co-organized by the Holy See and Italy. Catholic teaching views surrogacy as contrary to the unity of marriage and the dignity of human procreation, citing the 1987 instruction 'Donum Vitae'. The practice is criticized for objectifying women, eroding familial ties, and depriving children of the right to be born and raised by their biological parents. Archbishop Caccia characterized the issue as 'urgent,' suggesting that technology and practice have outpaced legal and ethical frameworks.
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Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia, the Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations and newly named papal nuncio to the U.S., addressed a side event on March 12 during the UN's 70th Commission on the Status of Women.1
The event, titled “Protecting Women and Children: Combating Violence and Exploitation in Surrogacy,” was organized by the Holy See, Italy, Turkey, Paraguay, and the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on violence against women.1
Caccia affirmed the Catholic Church's stance that surrogacy violates the dignity and rights of women and children while undermining family bonds.1
This position draws from the 1987 Vatican instruction Donum Vitae, which deems surrogacy contrary to marital unity, human procreation's dignity, and children's rights to biological parents.1
Pope Leo XIV echoed this in a January 9, 2026, address, warning that surrogacy exploits women's bodies and reduces children to products.1
Surrogacy deprives children of the right to be created in love and raised by their parents, as per the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.1
It objectifies women, often isolating them from families physically or emotionally during pregnancy.1
Caccia highlighted that many view surrogacy compassionately for infertile couples, but the full context reveals incompatibilities with dignity.1
The global surrogacy market reached $22.4 billion in 2024 and is projected to hit nearly $202 billion by 2034, outpacing legal and ethical frameworks.1
Demand exceeds supply, with impoverished women coerced—sometimes by family—into surrogacy due to financial desperation and limited resources.1
Caccia questioned the industry's viability without poverty, noting that social protections and opportunities would reduce participation.1
Even where legal, surrogacy fosters competition among surrogates or disguises payments as "gifts" in prohibited areas.1
Caccia praised the Hague Conference's March decision to pause a surrogacy parentage convention.1
He stressed that regulation alone cannot resolve inherent moral issues.1
The archbishop described surrogacy as an "urgent" issue requiring comprehensive action.1
The Holy See expressed hope that the UN event would advance efforts to end surrogacy globally, protecting women and children from exploitation.1
Surrogacy undermines dignity of women and children, per Catholic doctrine
Catholic doctrine upholds the inherent and equal dignity of every human person, rooted in being created in God's image, particularly emphasizing this in the contexts of marriage, family, and the transmission of life. While the provided sources do not explicitly address surrogacy, they articulate foundational principles—such as the equality of man and woman, the child as a gift of conjugal love rather than a product, and the family as divinely instituted—that reveal tensions with practices like surrogacy, which often commodify children and instrumentalize women's bodies.
The Church teaches that God created man and woman in perfect equality as human persons, each possessing an inalienable dignity directly from the Creator. "Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. 'Being man' or 'being woman' is a reality which is good and willed by God." This dignity is not contingent on roles or functions but flows from their shared imaging of God.
Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: all therefore enjoy an equal dignity.
Surrogacy arrangements, by involving contracts where a woman's womb is used for gestation on behalf of others, risk reducing her to a means of production, undermining this dignity. The family itself is instituted by God with members equal in dignity, bearing responsibilities for the common good. Any practice that exploits bodily functions for contractual ends contravenes this vision of persons as ends in themselves.
Central to Catholic teaching is that children are gifts of conjugal love, not objects owed or manufactured. "A child deserves to be born of that love, and not by any other means, for 'he or she is not something owed to one, but is a gift', which is 'the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of the parents'." Procreation is inseparably linked to the matrimonial covenant, ordered toward the spouses' good and offspring: "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring."
Surrogacy disrupts this by separating conception from the marital act, often through technological means, treating the child as a commodity transferable via contract. This echoes broader warnings against reducing life transmission to individual plans, as noted in reflections on Humanae Vitae. The child's name itself is sacred, an icon of the person demanding respect as a sign of dignity. Practices that "order" children to parental fulfillment invert this, positioning the child as a right rather than a gift.
True fruitfulness in marriage extends beyond biology, embracing openness to life while respecting dignity. Pope Francis highlights adoption and foster care as expressions of this: "The choice of adoption and foster care expresses a particular kind of fruitfulness in the marriage experience... They make people aware that children... are persons in their own right who need to be accepted, loved and cared for, and not just brought into this world." The Church supports families welcoming children with disabilities, resisting mentalities that view procreation as a "variable of an individual’s or a couple’s plans."
Surrogacy, by contrast, aligns with a "culture" prioritizing self-fulfillment over gift, potentially fueling exploitation, including child trafficking concerns raised in magisterial texts. The Gospel of life demands guardianship of life from conception, rejecting its proprietorship.
These principles underpin the Church's vision of human promotion, where respect for life—especially the vulnerable—is non-negotiable. "There is no true progress, no true civil society, no true human promotion without respect for human life, especially the life of those who have no voice of their own." Surrogacy's contractual nature risks violating this, echoing Evangelium Vitae's call to resist cultures devaluing life.
While the sources provide no direct treatment of surrogacy, their emphasis on equal personal dignity, conjugal love as the sole origin of children, and fruitfulness through gift rather than contract strongly implies that surrogacy undermines the dignity of both women (reduced to biological instruments) and children (treated as products). These teachings, drawn from the Catechism and recent pontiffs, prioritize the inviolable personhood over utilitarian arrangements. For fuller exposition, Church documents like Dignitatis Personae (not among provided references) explicitly address reproductive technologies, but the principles here remain consistent.