Australian bishops call on government to enforce country’s surrogacy ban

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has urged the Australian Law Reform Commission to ban all forms of surrogacy, including “altruistic” arrangements, in a nine-page letterhighlighting the “profound harms” of the practice.

“The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference calls on the Law Reform Commission to recommend the prohibition of all forms of surrogacy in Australia,” the bishops write in the letter, which was shared with CNA.

“A woman is not a machine for reproduction,” the bishops argue in the letter, “she is a person made in the image of God, called to bear life with love, freedom, and dignity.”

“Surrogacy reduces this sacred role [of motherhood] to a service contract—an arrangement that denies the women’s full humanity,” the letter says. “Surrogacy attempts to divide a woman's body from her identity, as though she could be a vessel without being a mother.”

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