Surrogate motherhood: in Rome, a large panel of experts calls for an international ban on the practice

The international conference held in Rome in 2024 provided an opportunity to reiterate the reasons for such a declaration, especially the particularly damaging impact of surrogacy on respect for the dignity of women and children, through the commodification of their bodies.

The experts were also able to reiterate the need, at national level, to prohibit and combat the practice of surrogacy, and, at international level, to "commit to an international convention with a view to the universal abolition of surrogate motherhood", as set out in the 2023 declaration.

The holding of this conference in the Italian capital coincides with current plans to adopt a law making surrogacy a criminal offence under Italian law, including outside Italian territory.

Among the experts who signed the Casablanca Declaration was Professor René Frydman, an obstetrician-gynaecologist, "father" of the first test-tube baby in France, and author of the recent book "The Tyranny of Reproduction".

The Rome meeting was attended by a wide range of experts from the worlds of science (including many lawyers), associations, the media and intergovernmental organisations. Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, was one of the participants.

In addition, Olivia Maurel, who was born as a result of surrogate motherhood and is spokesperson for the Casablanca Declaration, testified to the traumatic consequences of the practice of surrogate mothers on the children who are the subject of these contracts (see EIB News 26/1/24), particularly as a result of the early and voluntary separation of the child from its mother.

The organisation of this conference at the beginning of April 2024 came just a few days before a new meeting of the working group of the International Hague Conference (from 8 to 12 April), whose mandate includes considering the drafting of an international convention on the transnational recognition of filiation resulting from surrogate motherhood. In an open letter published on X, the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogacy took the opportunity to reiterate the need to put an end to any plans to liberalise surrogacy.

In Belgium too, at a time when the legalisation of surrogate motherhood is on the election manifesto of several political parties ahead of the elections on 9 June, a "Feminist seminar on surrogacy" was held on 28 March in Brussels, at the initiative of the Université des Femmes, CIAMS and 14 feminist associations. The aim of the seminar was to show how surrogacy violates human rights and to denounce the physical and psychological impact of this practice on women and children. Against the backdrop of the 2024 elections, the seminar was also an opportunity to call on politicians who favour the deployment of this practice in Belgium.