Court of Cassation Undermines the Ban on Surrogacy [Press Release]

Alliance VITA responds to the French Court of Cassation’s rulings of July 5, 2017 concerning surrogacy acts performed abroad, and recording the resulting births on the civil registry, with birth certificates and simple adoption declarations.  

Tugdual Derville, Alliance VITA’s General Delegate :

« Instead of retrospectively endorsing the practice of surrogacy, which is the equivalent of encouraging it, France should be bold enough to formally protest it, including its consequences on the civil registry. Only if France has a determined abolitionist stance can this crucial and decisive shift be prevented from veering toward the ultra-liberal international marketing of human beings. Only a resolute social and legal condemnation of surrogacy can protect humanity. What is at issue is quite frankly the trafficking of human beings. Surrogacy is a premeditated abuse: it plans for a child to be abandoned, by brutally separating him from the mother who bore him, and by inflicting upon him a shattered maternity of several “mothers”. It is therefore in opposition to the child’s best interests, and to women’s dignity, for society to use them as “manufacturers” of human beings. It is urgent for France to sanction these acts committed abroad which transgress our fundamental ethical principles. Who would dare admit that children born from surrogacy are the innocent victims of the commanding sponsors? Who would dare allow them the right to seek compensation for the inherent abuse in these acts? Should they be obliged to endorse the surrogacy act whereby they themselves were abused, under the pretext that they are sincerely loved by those who have procured them in this manner?”

Caroline Roux, Director at VITA International, and member of the International joint group No Maternity Traffic

« This decision constitutes another step towards allowing surrogacy, by turning a blind eye to the fraud against the law. The Court of Cassation is manipulating adoption, by endorsing this deliberate tampering with parentage. How can one not speak out against abuse when a child born to a surrogate mother, is only conceived in order to be abandoned at birth? Recall that the French ban on surrogacy is primarily to protect women and children’s rights. This ruling deeply questions the role of French law for justice. The French president and his government need to urgently commit to establishing a bold and determined policy to effectively prohibit all surrogacy, both nationally and internationally.”