‘BAD FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN’

This week, New York State finalized the budget for 2020-21, and with it brought some upsetting news for the Albany Diocese: the legalization of commercial surrogacy contracts. 

The New York State Catholic Conference (NYSCC) condemned the new law in a statement released on Friday, April 4. The Catholic Conference represents the state’s bishops in public policy matters.

“The action by the legislature and governor to legalize monetary contracts for surrogate motherhood stands in stark contrast to most other democratic nations across the globe, which have outlawed the practice because of the exploitation of women and commodification of children that inevitably results from the profit-driven surrogacy industry,” said Kathleen M. Gallagher, director of pro-life activities for the NYSCC.  

“What makes it worse is our state elected officials included this major policy change in a 400-page budget bill in the midst of a pandemic crisis. We simply do not believe that such a critical legal and moral decision for our state should have been made behind the closed doors of a Capitol shut off to the public. The new law is bad for women and children, and the process is terrible for democracy.”

The NYSCC announced the bill’s passage in an email on Thursday, April 2, outlining key elements of the new law, which is scheduled to go into effect on Feb. 15, 2021. 

“The new law permits gestational surrogate parenting monetary contracts. This means that persons who desire to be parents (the “intended parents”) will be able to pay a woman to gestate and deliver a child for them, as long as the egg used in the creation of the embryo is not the surrogate mothers,” Gallagher wrote in the email. 

Among many concerns carried by the Catholic Conference, “the new law puts the safety and well-being of the children being created and bought in these arrangements is largely an afterthought,” said Gallagher. 

The state does not require any background checks, physical or psychological screenings and no strict state residency for the intended parents of the child. The surrogate mother is also given the right to terminate the pregnancy at any time during gestation, or “reduce or retain the number of fetuses or embryos she is carrying.”

Gallagher added this new policy “says that human lives are commodities which can be manufactured, bought and sold, and used for their parts. The law is a great teacher; it teaches us what is morally acceptable and unacceptable. This law teaches the wrong lessons.”

Other points for the bill include:

• The intended parents are not required to be married.

• The intended parents are to pay for any psychological counseling for the surrogate mother following delivery should she ask for it.

• Intended parents agree to accept custody of the child regardless of the number of children, gender, or mental or physical condition. 

Added Gallagher: “Like the radical abortion law that was enacted last year, this new law devalues and cheapens human life. It sends the message that children are not a gift and a blessing, but a product that can be made-to-order. And it sets up a system of radical income inequality whereby poor women who are desperate for income will be used by wealthy couples as incubators for their infants. It will wreak a terrible emotional toll on these surrogate mothers.”