THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
AND
SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD
By: Joseph M. Incandela,
Ph.D.
Official Catholic teaching about surrogate motherhood has its foundation in Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical letter by Pope Paul VI about artificial birth control ("http://www.cs.cmu.edu/people/spok/catholic/humanae-vitae.html"). Very briefly--that letter stated that there are two equal purposes of sex in marriage, the unitive and the procreative, and that both must be present in each act of sex in marriage. That is to say, marital sex should be both physically and emotionally unifying AND open to the transmission of new life. Perhaps the best way to understand this core teaching is that if human beings truly are created in God's image and likeness, then human love should imitate divine love.
Therefore, since God's love issues forth creation in an act of supreme and unfettered generosity, human love should be both love-giving (unitive) and life-giving (procreative). The most controversial aspect of the teaching articulated by Paul VI was that this connection between unity and procreation was deemed "inseparable" and a requirement in "each and every marriage act."
Artificial contraception delivered unity without openness to procreation and so separated what the law of nature written into creation by the creator willed inseparable.
This is a very wide-angle opening to a treatment of surrogate motherhood, but absolutely crucial to bring this issue into its proper focus within the Catholic tradition. For note that if unity and procreation really are inseparable, they're inseparable from both directions. Namely, if it is wrong to separate procreation from unity with the use of artificial contraception, it is equally wrong to separate procreation from unity and have offspring apart from the sexual act of the married couple. In short, no sex without (openness to) babies; no babies without sex. This teaching is articulated most fully in the Church's 1987 statement by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith entitled "Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation" (the Latin title is Donum Vitae, and it can be found at ("http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/church/vatican/giftlife.doc").
In that letter, the Church spoke of homologous forms of assisted reproduction in which sperm and egg come from the married couple; and heterologous forms of assisted reproduction in which some third party is brought into the process of conception, gestation, and birth. Most homologous forms of assisted reproduction divorce procreation from sexual union of the man and woman; and all heterologous forms (such as surrogacy) do. As a result, neither is acceptable from within official Catholic teaching.
Needless to say, this conclusion has not been received without objection by many infertile Catholic couples, who do not see that Donum Vitae goes far enough, even while it calls infertility "a difficult trial" and expresses sympathy towards "the suffering of spouses who cannot have children." Its elaboration that "Physical sterility in fact can be for spouses the occasion for other important services to the life of the human person, for example, adoption, various forms of education work, and the assistance to other families and to poor or handicapped children" sounds noble but frequently rings hollow.
Let us again try to uncover the core of the teaching. The Catholic tradition sees marriage as both divinely instituted but also the most humanly compelling context for sexual expression. Love puts down stakes. Love reaches into the future. I do not truly love without truly committing my life and my future to my spouse's life and future. The fullest expression of love between man and woman finds its home in marriage, therefore. It is but a short step from here to the conclusion that marriage is the most ethically appropriate place in which to have and raise children: if (from above) one of the purposes of a marital sexual relationship is procreation, and procreation produces something that's permanent (a child), then the child is most appropriately received in a context which is itself permanent (marriage).
There is a more symbolic way in which to render this point. Donum Vitae calls children "the supreme gift" of a marriage. For this reason, no one can have a "right" to a child, just as no one can have a "right" to a gift. Things we have rights to are by this very fact no longer truly gifts. Gifts are simply things to which we don't have rights. Reproductive technologies which seek to 'take' a child apart from sexual intercourse do not treat a child as what he or she truly is. Moreover, recognition of children as gifts underscores the most proper context for receiving that gift. According to the Church, a child is not only "the most gratuitous gift of marriage," but is also "a living testimony of the mutual giving of his parents." Sexual intercourse is the mutual giving of partner to partner. And the idea is that the most proper way to conceive a child, who is a gift from God, is from within a context which is itself a giving one. For this reason, the Church speaks of the child's right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents." The very nature of a surrogacy arrangement rules such out.
This applies not only to surrogacy arrangements in which the surrogate isthe genetic mother of the child, but also to so-called "gestational surrogacy," in which the surrogate carries a child not genetically related to,her. The mutual giving expressed by what the Church calls "the language of the bodies" morally requires that the child not only be conceived through sex between its biological father and mother, but also carried and gestated by its genetic mother. Thus, Donum Vitae speaks of "the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents."
Still, the debate continues and does so inevitably; for whenever something new comes along, ethicists and ordinary folk scramble to make sense of it in light of categories and realities with which they are already familiar. And so some see paid surrogacy as akin to prostitution in which a woman sells (or rents) her body to a client willing to pay for it. Reproductive organs are purchased by patrons of surrogacy just as sexual organs are purchased by patrons of prostitutes. In both cases, women are being valued for--and frequently reduced to--biological capacity. A related point voices concern about how paid surrogacy renders those women who are already economically marginalized even more vulnerable to coercion and manipulation by those with greater means.
Still others compare surrogacy to adoption. If adoption is morally praiseworthy and a gift of love, then why can't surrogacy be likewise? Certainly, children who are adopted are not 'the fruit of the specific act of conjugal love' of the parents raising them. True enough, but the Church would respond that it's one thing to make the best of a less-than-optimal situation; it's another thing to intentionally create it. For example, it's one thing to raise an orphaned child; it's another to cause a child to be an orphan. So too, it would be one thing for a couple to raise a child which isn't biologically both of their own or a child which IS genetically their own but not gestated by the mother whoe furnished the egg; it would be another for them to intentionally cause such a child to be born.
Surrogacy asks all of us some very difficult questions: what does it mean to be a parent? How should we consider children? Obviously, money frequently changes hands in an adoption just as in surrogacy. If the money is paying for a child, rather than for a service, then is the child's giftedness being violated; and is the child himself or herself being reduced to a commodity, one good alongside other goods we buy and sell in our economy? And if the answer to this is 'yes,' then (at least) paid surrogacy violates the dignity of the personhood of our offspring, for only THINGS have prices--people are too valuable to be for sale.
Is sex crucial for generating children? Or is it the case that as long as children come about from love, then parents are exercising proper stewardship over their offspring? The Church would answer 'no' to this, for it holds that good intentions by themselves do not necessarily produce good actions. The Catholic tradition refuses to see human beings as moral mercenaries who purchase goodness by end results. But... if the answer to that question is 'yes' then love can be sexual love; love can be the willingness of a couple to go through the stress, expense, and physical hardship of an in vitro or GIFT procedure; or love can be found in a surrogacy arrangement in which a couple entrusts their hopes and dreams to another, who herself may well be responding to their plight out of an equally generous love.
Joseph M. Incandela, Ph.D.
In addition, there's a very helpful site by Richard C. Sparks, C.S.P., a Catholic moral theologian, called "Helping Childless Couples Conceive." It does a very nice job articulating in much greater depth what Catholic teaching is about these issues. You can find it at http://www.americancatholic.org/messenger/0497/feature1.html
Joseph M. Incandela, Ph.D is a graduate of the
University of Notre Dame. His MA and PhD are from Princeton
University in Christian Ethics. He has been at Saint Mary's College
since 1987 and is the chair of the Department of Religious Studies
since 1996. His areas of expertise are Catholic Christian ethics and
philosophical theology.
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Joseph M. Incandela, Ph.D. |
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Chair & Associate Professor |
Fax: 219/271-1353 |
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Department of Religious Studies |
Phone (dept.): 219/284-4534 |
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Saint Mary's College |
Phone (office): 219/284-4613 |
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Notre Dame, IN 46556-5001 |
Phone (home): 219/271-0435 |
May 1998
Copyright 1998. The American Surrogacy
Center, Inc.(TASC), Marietta, GA
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