APPEAL TO THE UKRAINIAN AUTHORITIES AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
The coronavirus pandemic reveals many pathologies in our modern public life. One of them is the
phenomenon of surrogacy, where persons are treated as a commodity that can be ordered,
manufactured and sold. Unfortunately, this practise is allowed in Ukraine according to the current
legislation. We, the Catholic bishops of Ukraine, have already drawn the attention of the
competent state bodies to this problem. Such a trampling of human dignity urges us to
appeal to the Ukrainian authorities at all levels to condemn and ban this shameful
phenomenon.
In recent days, we have witnessed a video posted on the BioTexCom clinic page from the
Venice Hotel in Kyiv, which shows an improvised children's room and 46 crying babies,
deprived of maternal touch, parental warmth, selfless care, much-needed love, but are seen as a
purchased product for which the buyer did not come. Such a demonstration of contempt for the
human person and his dignity is unacceptable. And all this is possible due to legalized surrogacy.
The so-called surrogate motherhood, which should not be called "motherhood", entails not
only the horrible phenomena now manifested, but, at its core, is a moral evil and brings countless
sufferings and hardships to all participants of this deal, including the child, surrogate mother,
members of her family, and, finally, the people, who order and “produce” children.
The practice of surrogacy, its subject, purpose and means of achievement are morally
unacceptable. The same applies to the so-called altruistic surrogacy because even if the intention
of the surrogate mother is good, the means and the subject itself are bad. The commercial basis of
surrogacy from a moral point of view deserves an even harsher assessment, because it adds the
moral evil of buying and selling the functions of the body and the person of the new-born child.
No circumstances or consequences can justify the practice of surrogacy.
Every child is a gift of God that should be gratefully accepted in the marriage of a man and
a woman. Every child has the right to be conceived naturally, and every child has the right to be
born into a family and to be brought up in the atmosphere of love by father and mother. Surrogacy
severely violates this right and makes it impossible for Ukraine to follow the path of development,
the path of a great European heritage. Such a gap in Ukrainian legislation significantly destroys
European integration efforts and discredits our country in the eyes of European society.
We stand in solidarity with the call of the Ukrainian Parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights
to ban international child trafficking in Ukraine at the legislative level and demand to prohibit
the surrogacy in any form (altruistic and commercial) and ensure the new-borns proper
custody and adoption.
We support this demand by the condemnation made by a number of international
institutions for this shameful phenomenon, which we present in the appendix to this letter.
Also, we demand from the State authorities to finally pay attention to family policy in
Ukraine - to create an appropriate body of state power that would take care of Ukrainian families
and ensure that Ukrainian mothers do not have to trade their bodies and children born for their
own and their families' survival.
On behalf of the Synod of Bishops of the Kyiv-Halych Supreme Archdiocese of the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Supreme Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, Head of
the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
On behalf of the Conference of Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine Archbishop
Mechyslav Mokshytskyi, Metropolitan of Lviv, Acting Chairman of the Conference of Bishops
of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine.
Explicatory Appendix
The practice of surrogacy violates international and European and International law, in
particular the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 1 and 3, (2000), the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, Art. 7 and 3 (1989), and the Protocol on Trafficking in
Children, Art. 2 (2000), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, Art. 6 (1979), On the adoption of children, Art. 4c (3) (1967 and 1993), On human
trafficking, Art. 4; (2005), Human Rights and Biomedicine Art. 21 (1997).
The European Parliament has unequivocally condemned the practice of surrogacy, without
distinguishing between its "altruistic" and "commercial" aspects. On 5 April 2011, the European
Parliament adopted a resolution asking "Member States to recognize the serious problem of
surrogacy, which is the exploitation of the female body and its reproductive organs" (European
Parliament resolution of 5 April 2011 on priorities and outline of a new EU policy framework to fight
violence against women, §20). The resolution also states that the practice of surrogacy leads to
trafficking in human beings: “Women and children are subject to the same form of exploitation, and
both can be considered as goods in the international reproductive market, and new reproductive
arrangements such as surrogacy expand trafficking in women and their children, illegal
transportation across national borders” (Ibid., §21).
"The Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2014 and the EU Policy on this
Issue”, adopted by the European Parliament on 30 November 2015, condemns the practice of
surrogacy, “which undermines the human dignity of the woman since her body and its reproductive
functions are used as a commodity" (§115) .
In the 2018 UN Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of
Children, including Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Other Materials of Sexual
Violence against Children (15 January 2018), we read warnings against abuse and practices of
all forms of surrogacy, and Ukraine is criticized as one of the international centres of commercial
surrogacy.
Blog da Militia Sanctæ Mariæ - Cavaleiros de Nossa Senhora um instrumento na evangelização do mundo contemporâneo // Blog created by Militia Sanctæ Mariæ, whose purpose is to be an instrument in the evangelization of the contemporary world // Blog de la Militia Sanctæ Mariæ et dont le but est d'être un instrument dans l'évangélisation du monde contemporain // Blog der Militia Sanctæ Mariæ, die sich zum Ziel gesetzt haben, ein Werkzeug bei der Evangelisierung der heutigen Welt zu sein
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