The global surrogacy market is surging – and is showing no signs of slowing down. Last year, the surrogacy industry was worth about $22.4 billion and is projected to grow to $201.8 billion by 2034.
Why the Rise in Surrogacy?
Global Market Insights, a data company, lists several factors in the rise of surrogacy: infertility, acceptance of same-sex parenting, and delayed pregnancy.
The increase in surrogacy has coincided with a decline in adoption. The Economist reports that adoption has fallen “because of the introduction of needlessly stringent rules on the suitability of parents.” One such rule in Britain requires that each child has his or her own room.
Technocratic Paradigm
Dr. Charles Camosy, professor of moral theology at the Catholic University of America, told Drew Mariani that surrogacy and IVF fall under what Pope Francis referred to as the “technocratic paradigm.”
This new paradigm, according to the late Pontiff, uses technology in an “undifferentiated and one-dimensional” way. Pope Francis, quoting the 20th-century theologian Romano Guardini, wrote, “The fact is that ‘contemporary man has not been trained to use power well,’ because our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience.” In other words, contemporary society has increased its technological capability, but not its morality.
Teaching of the Church
Surrogacy, Camosy told Drew treats children as something that one “buys in a marketplace.” The Church, however, teaches that children are gifts to be received from God, not as the Catechism teaches, someone one is “owed.”
The Catechism of the Church explains that surrogacy is “gravely immoral” because it entails “the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple.” The process also robs a child of his right to be born into his family of origin.
Recently, Australian bishops spoke out against surrogacy, saying that the practice, “attempts to divide a woman’s body from her identity, as though she could be a vessel without being a mother.”
Last year, Pope Francis made international news by calling for a universal ban on the practice and called surrogate motherhood “deplorable.”