Legalising surrogacy would start a slippery slope towards a modern variation of “ladies and maidservants”, a pro-life speaker from The Netherlands said yesterday at a conference on changes to the Embryo Protection Act.
Esme Wiegman-van Meppelen Scheppink, director of the Dutch Patient Association and former MP for the Christian Union party, questioned whether a surrogate mother would retain her autonomy, and the extent to which the prospective parents could impose lifestyle choices or medical procedures.
The conference was organised by the Life Research Unit, part of the Life Network Foundation, on the theme of “social, psychological and legal implications of surrogacy and gamete donation”.
Dr Wiegman said there were questions over whether there could be any informed consent over the decision to become a surrogate, as there was no way of ensuring the woman was free from economic pressures (in the case of commercial surrogacy) or emotional coercion shaping her decision.
Organised crime will shift into the surrogacy market
Dismissing any comparison to adoption, which she said was about finding the best solution for an existing child rather than creating a new child, Dr Wiegman also warned that it was “inevitable” that organised crime and human trafficking interests would shift into the surrogacy market.
“In the context of the Embryo Protection Act, introducing surrogacy and gamete donation in Malta means the Act will no longer protect the embryo or even women,” she said.
“Life will eventually become no longer a gift but a choice, which can be created in several ways.”
Surrogacy, whereby a woman agrees to carry a pregnancy for someone else, who will become the parent, is legal for altruistic or non-profit purposes in some EU countries, including Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands.
‘Commercial’ surrogacy is allowed in Russia, Ukraine and some states in America. It is not legal in Malta.
The Nationalist Party has pronounced itself squarely against legalising the practice, and while the government has indicated that it is ready to move forward on sperm and egg donation, it has been less clear on surrogacy.
Also addressing the conference yesterday, Christophe Foltzenlogel, a jurist at the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) in Strasbourg, described surrogacy as a contract with the child as its subject.
Mr Foltzenlogel questioned its compatibility with the international Convention on the Rights of the Child.
He stressed that the European Parliament, in a 2013 resolution, had condemned the practice, which it said “undermines the human dignity of the woman, since her body and its reproductive functions are used as a commodity”.