By Dr Jeanette Pinto –
Motherhood is a very special gift that God has given to a woman. However, this dream of being a mother eludes many a woman. Changing times, the fast pace of life and immense pressure on both men and women has left them face to face with complicated medical issues related to infertility or incapability to bear a child. Today, the reach of medical science has gone to great levels. Yet if you want a child and are unable to conceive one then a surrogate woman can help you become a mother in a different way.
So what is surrogacy? Surrogacy means your baby is carried by some other lady (often referred to as surrogate mother) in her womb. A woman offers her womb for rent to have your baby. She goes through the nine months of pregnancy, delivers your child and hands it over to you immediately after birth. Surprisingly there are millions of donors ready to lend their wombs, thus becoming surrogate mothers, and still others who are willing to give away their eggs to fulfil the dreams of other women.
How is this possible? Infertility clinics provide you with the detailed procedures involved. There are women who wish to be surrogate mothers or egg donors. There are formalities and experts to assist you. Prospective parents will avail the help of reliable contacts and use the services of such mothers to get their fertilized embryo implanted into her womb. Then the surrogate mother carries the baby to term. There may be worries, anxieties and fears lurking at the back of the surrogate mother’s mind; doctors and specialists will however take care of her case and guide her through the entire process till the time of the child’s birth.
Gone are the days when infertility used to be a nightmare for women. Now, women have the opportunity to become mothers and experience the joys of parenthood even if their biological system doesn’t support it. This is what advancement in science has brought forth- hope for barren women.
What does the Catholic Church teach about surrogate motherhood?
First, we begin with the truth that human life is sacred, that is to say that our life: “it is of God.” Psalm 139…it also speaks about God knitting us together in our mother’s womb. The same Psalm says that all of our days were written in God’s book before one of them ever came to be. So, human lives have the mark of God upon them. Our life, our very existence, is caught up in the intention, the will, and the very heart of God.
Second, since human life is sacred, so are the means by which we come into existence. Thus, our second truth is that sexual intercourse is sacred. It indicates that sexual intercourse is from God, and is touched by him. Just as in marriage there are three to get married, the husband, the wife and the Lord; so, in the great sacramental expression of marriage, the husband and wife are joined, but in the Lord. The Lord, who is the author of their love, joins the spouses and, according to His will, makes their love fruitful in their children. So, the origin of every sacred human person is in the sacred sexual act, which involves not only the spouses, but also the Lord.
Sadly, in our culture, sex is treated as anything but sacred. It is often the butt of jokes, suffers from lewd conduct, countless misapplications and perversions, to include: fornication, adultery, pornography, immodesty, homosexual acts, and so forth. What is beautiful and sacred, is treated to base and profane. If the sacredness of sex is treated lightly, so is the sacredness of human life easily discarded? It is no coincidence that the culture of death has emerged in the age of promiscuity.
Third, since human life is sacred, so is the context of sex and life – we call marriage also sacred. Every valid marriage is in fact a work of God, (See Genesis I &2) thus what God has joined together, no one is to divide.
God tells the first couple, Adam and Eve, ‘to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth!’ (Gen 1:28). Thus marriage should be heterosexual, fruitful and lasting, because that is what is best, and what is just for children. Namely, that they should be raised by their own father and mother, formed by a male and female influence, in an environment that is both stable, and gives complementary witness to the fullness of the human person.
And so, having set forth a kind of sacred trilogy that the human person, human sexual intercourse, and marriage are all sacred, we now observe that God has united these three sacred realities and intends them to be together. The human person, who is sacred, is intended to be conceived in the loving and sacred embrace of sexual intercourse, between a man and woman in the sacred union of holy matrimony. Marriage, sex and children are all meant to be united, and God has joined them. Sadly, we seem today to be intent on dividing them and the sacred trilogy is often violated. Obviously fornication, adultery, and homosexual acts, all violate the trilogy by separating out or removing essential parts of it.
The Catholic Church opposes surrogate motherhood also because the second woman carries the baby to term usually for remuneration. (It is a commercial deal)
Another aberration that violates the sacred trilogy of sacred human life is “In vitro” fertilization which is done in a petri dish. Life becomes now a product, produced in a laboratory, usually at a stated price. Sacred human life becomes a commodity for sale.
Agreed that infertility in certain couples is lamentable and, at human level, it may seem understandable that they should want to do what is possible to conceive. Yet, in the end, the reality is that we are separating what God has joined. Perhaps the couple is infertile for reasons known to God who wishes them to adopt a child and be a foster parent. In vitro fertilization resists discerning God’s will and seeks merely to supplant our wishes. The killing of many embryos is also morally odious. Conceived embryos are discarded, frozen, or experimented on; to be harvested by those engaged in stem cell research. Hence human life here is treated as a commodity to be bought, sold, and used at will.
Dr Jeanette Pinto, an educator for the past 5 decades, headed the Department of History was Vice Principal of St. Xavier’s College Mumbai, and retired as Principal of Sophia College, Mumbai. She is a counsellor and conductor of Personal Enrichment Programmes for students and teachers.
She set up the Human Life Committee in the Archdiocese of Bombay. As a sex educator she has given talks on Human Sexuality in India and abroad. In 2014 she received the Rachana Outstanding Woman of the Year for her Pro-life work presented by the Diocese of Mangalore. She has attended many National and International Pro-life conferences and given talks at other fora on various women’s issues.
She is author of a couple of books, her most recent ones are titled: I’m Pro-Life Are you? & Sex Talk: Parent to Child. She has also written a number of articles on a variety of themes and subjects, which have been published in research journals, The Examiner and other Catholic publications.