No Maternity Traffic and Alliance VITA are keeping a vigilant eye on surrogacy after the Committee on Social Affairs of the Council of Europe rejected the resolution on surrogacy. Indeed the Committee adopted a recommendation to be submitted for a vote at the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly at the beginning of October.
No Maternity Traffic welcomes the rejection of the draft resolution on surrogacy by the Committee on Social Affairs of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE). This text is dangerous since it endorses the practice of surrogacy.
This rejection proves that it is achievable to obtain a parliamentary majority in favor of expressly prohibiting any form of surrogacy since this practice is indeed contrary to human rights.
No Maternity Traffic notes that the recommendation attached to the resolution was nonetheless adopted, after having been amended. The Assembly will discuss this amended text at its next plenary session in October.
This project recommends for European member States to draw up guidelines to safeguard the rights of children born to a surrogate mother.
No Maternity Traffic agrees with this main concern to protect children’s rights. However, if one sincerely wishes to protect children’s rights, the very principle of surrogacy , whether commercial or not, should be forbidden.
It is useless, and even blatantly dishonest, to pretend to fight the consequences of surrogacy for children, without first condemning the original cause.
Surrogacy is unquestionably a step backwards as regards to women’s rights and the best interest of the child. All forms of Surrogacy are exploiting women and propagating child-trafficking, thereby depriving children of all or part of their filiation.
The international group No Maternity Traffic will continue its commitment and appeal to all the deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to adopt a recommendation, as the European Parliament did last December, to condemn in clear words all forms of surrogacy, and to recommend for each country to adopt a joint policy on a European level.”
http://www.nomaternitytraffic.eu/cp-gpa-le-debat-continue-au-conseil-de-leurope/
For further information on this report: http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/News/News-View-FR.asp?newsid=6316&lang=1&cat=133
