During the commission’s meeting for social issues at the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe last April 20, the rapporteur for Surrogacy, Petra de Sutter (“Green” Environmentalist party, Belgium), whose report had been rejected last March 15, maneuvered the presentation of a new report with the support of the Commission’s new president.
In a tense atmosphere, the other members of parliament had no choice but to accept that the commission should continue to address this question without changing the rapporteur, who is nevertheless suspected of conflict of interest. Petra de Sutter proposed drafting a report with two options: either condemning commercialized surrogacy or defining a legal frame centered on protecting the child’s interests.
Caroline Roux, Director of VITA International, states « this maneuver is completely alien to a true democratic spirit. It is unbelievable that the same individual actually proposes the same objective to legalize some forms of surrogacy in a new report, when the preceding report was just rejected. This is clearly a way of preventing a genuine debate, especially as no real alternative is proposed to condemn all forms of surrogacy, as was recommended by the European Parliament by a large majority last December. Whether it is considered business or not, the original mistreatment of children born in these circumstances can never be repaired, neither can the exploitation of the bodies of these women which constitutes an unprecedented estrangement.”
Alliance VITA is an active member of the international group No Maternity Traffic. This group submitted a petition of over 100,000 signatures by European citizens requesting that surrogacy be universally forbidden. Alliance VITA remains committed to achieve this goal.
