European policies on surrogacy increasingly reflect Catholic teachings

Editor’s Note: This article contains stories with sexually disordered and disturbing details. Reader’s discretion is advised.

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Italy’s Senate passed a law last week making it illegal for Italian couples to go abroad to have a baby through surrogacy.

In a vote of 84 to 58, the conservative governing party is extending an existing ban on the practice of surrogacy inside the country to also include those Italian residents who seek it out in places where it is legal—including the United States and Canada.

According to press reports, Georgia Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, has described surrogacy as a “symbol of an abominable society that confuses desire with rights and replaces God with money,” Meloni’s deputy, Matteo Salvini, has called the practice an “aberration that treats women like an ATM.”

Although some of Meloni’s critics claim she is targeting LGBTQ couples who are not allowed to adopt or use IVF in Italy, most of the couples who use surrogacy in Italy are heterosexual.

Still, Meloni has often spoken out against surrogacy involving LGBT couples. In 2023, Meloni demanded that Italy’s city councils needed to stop listing parents of the same gender on their children’s birth certificates—pronouncing that councils register only the biological parent. Reuters reported that in the City of Padua, the state prosecutor went further, demanding that the 33 birth certificates issued to the children of lesbian couples be changed to remove the name of the non-biological mother.

Although the United States has some of the most permissive surrogacy laws in the world, Meloni is not alone in her concerns about surrogacy. According to research reported by the BBC, many European countries ban surrogacy. Italy, Spain, France, and Germany outlaw all forms of surrogacy.

In the UK, it is illegal to pay for surrogacy beyond the surrogate’s reasonable expenses. The surrogate is registered on the birth certificate until parenthood is transferred. In Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Czech Republic, it is not possible to get a court to enforce a surrogacy agreement. Greece accepts foreign couples but insists that there should be a woman in the relationship, thus excluding homosexual couples or single men.

These concerns are well-founded. Last year, the FBI arrested and charged Adam Stafford King, a Chicago veterinarian and dog show judge, for distributing child sexual assault photos and videos and boasting about drugging and sexually abusing his young nieces and nephews. King and his “husband” were awaiting the birth of their child by a surrogate in California. CBS News reported that King allegedly wrote in an online message describing the sexual abuse of his nieces and nephews:

“I generally use Benadryl,” noting that it provides a “wide safety margin,” and is “easy,” claiming, “it generally takes 30-45 minutes,” and “I usually double an adult dose,” according to the charges.

King also allegedly claimed that he and his husband were expecting the birth of a child by a surrogate on March 29, and that he planned to sexually assault the child after it is born. He also allegedly sent the person in New York an ultrasound image of the unborn child, and a photo of a baby outfit he and his husband got for Christmas. “I do love the idea of inviting a buddy over when I have my boy … just has to be someone I can trust obviously…”

During the search of King’s home and a forensic search of his iPhone, the FBI also found images of child pornography, the ultrasound image of “his child” with the surrogate that he had already shared with friends who would be invited to sexually abuse the child once he or she was born.

This is not an isolated incident. In 2011, Mark Newton, an American citizen, and Peter Truong, who is Australian, were arrested in Los Angeles and convicted two years later on charges related to their involvement in a child exploitation conspiracy involving their then six-year-old “son”—the “son” they purchased for $8,000 from a surrogate in Russia. The two were caught when the police found videos showing their “son” being sexually abused by two American men—a 35-year-old tennis coach from Michigan, and a 38-year-old attorney from Florida. Both Truong and Newton were part of a global online pedophile network called Tail of the Dragon. Members included men from the UK, Lebanon, the United States, Mexico, and Australia.

The same-sex couple began abusing the child when he was 22 months old. After that time, he was abused on a daily basis. The gay “parents” took photos and video recorded the acts and distributed the videos on the Internet for a price to pedophiles. Later, they made their child available for sex with other members of the gay pedophile ring in Australia, France, Germany and the United States. Yet, in July, 2010, prior to the revelations of sexual abuse, the homosexual couple had been lauded in Australia in a television documentary entitled, “Two Dads are Better than One.” Investigators found proof of at least eight men in these countries having sexual contact with the child when he was between the ages of two and six.

Concerned about the sexual abuse of children, Russia’s House of Parliament voted unanimously to ban the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples from abroad. The House also voted to forbid single people who are citizens or permanent residents of countries that allow same sex marriage to become adoptive parents or legal guardians of Russian children. Children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov vowed to do everything possible to “ensure that Russian orphans are only adopted by traditional, heterosexual families.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin promoted the ban and received strong support from the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who sees the recognition of same-sex “unions” as a “portent of doom.” Russia’s Patriarch echoes the sentiments of Pope Francis, who has described same-sex marriage as a “destructive attack on God’s plan.” He has also said that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children.

Still, it must be acknowledged that same-sex couples are not the only ones who are sexually abusing children purchased through surrogacy. In 2016, a “father” who purchased twin daughters from a surrogate and then sexually abused them was ordered to serve 22 years for sexually abusing his surrogate twin infant daughters weekly for eight months from when they were one month old. He masqueraded as a woman online where he sought and shared child exploitation material, including films and images he produced of himself with his “daughters”. When his home was raided, the police found 26,343 child exploitation films and images, many of which he had produced.

It is difficult to understand why the United States continues to refuse to regulate the practice of surrogacy as other European countries are increasingly outlawing the practice. Faithful Catholics understand that the practice violates God’s “one-flesh” vision by involving a third person into the act of procreation. The surrogate becomes a kind of slave to the couple or the individual purchasing the services of the woman’s womb. Since it is unregulated, anyone—including a pedophile—can purchase these services.

Still, the fact that Spain, France and Germany—and now Italy—have moved to outlaw all forms of surrogacy gives hope to faithful Catholics that their Church will continue to lead on her teachings that surrogacy goes against the dignity of the human person and the unity of marriage. Catholics have always known that surrogacy violates the child’s right to be conceived and carried in the womb of his mother, and raised in love by his own parents. It is time that other countries—including our own—begin to acknowledge that.

Related at CWR:
• “The Case for a Global Ban on Surrogacy” (June 10, 2021) by Sister Renée Mirkes
• “Why everyone should oppose surrogacy” (June 4, 2016) by Jennifer Roback Morse