Some politicians talk about the welfare of children and the so-called "best interests of the child".
They do well, because they are our future. However, legislative trends go in other directions, in which, despite the good will of some, what really ends up counting is the desire and interest of adults.
The examples are unfortunately not few, but the case of surrogacy is emblematic. An emerging practice in which the child and the woman are turned into objects or products to be bought and sold.
The surrogacy business is built on the desire to have a child, and surrogacy is presented as a solution. However, that desire of adults, however legitimate, cannot be obtained at any cost, especially if that cost is to treat vulnerable women as if they were objects, and children as if they were commodities to be bought and sold. A child should always be a gift, not the object of adult desire.
In the public debate there is a broad consensus against this practice: from feminist groups to religious denominations. However, a large part of European legislation plays an important role in the public debate. double game in relation to this issue. While from the front they reject this practice in defense of the dignity of women, through the back door they legitimize it by normalizing the recognition of the filiation of children born abroad by these means.
Not a few states seem to be bowing to pressure from certain interest groups in this business whose fundamental raison d'être is the production of children on demand.
On March 3, I had the opportunity to speak at the seminar held in Casablanca on the occasion of the signing of the Declaration for the Universal Abolition of Surrogacyalso known as the Casablanca Declaration. It is necessary to work together to develop a universal commitment to protect women and children from the global surrogacy market.
Through this Declaration, experts from all over the world have asked States to take measures to prohibit this practice in their territory. It is a question of prohibiting and not regulating or setting conditions. It has been shown that the legalization of certain practices leads to the so-called "legalization effect". slippery slopeThe slippery slope, with an increase in assumptions, although the contrary is claimed.
The fact that some celebrities are resorting to gestational surrogacy does not help to have a broader social rejection towards this business with human beings, which I would dare to compare with slavery, because as in slavery, there are numerous economic interests that move.
Only a determined and courageous attitude such as the one that has been undertaken in Casablanca can achieve this ambitious goal: to eradicate a practice that is based exclusively on the wishes of adults and disregards the interests and rights of children.
Professor at the Faculty of Law of the International University of Catalonia and director of the Institute for Advanced Family Studies. She directs the Chair on Intergenerational Solidarity in the Family (IsFamily Santander Chair) and the Childcare and Family Policies Chair of the Joaquim Molins Figueras Foundation. She is also Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law at UIC Barcelona.
