On 21st September 2016, for the second time, the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) rejected a controversial resolution on surrogacy presented by the Belgian Senator Dr. Petra De Sutter. However, the Committee approved to propose the draft recommendation “European guidelines to safeguard children’s rights in relation to surrogacy arrangements” from the resolution of the Committee of Ministers, that had already been rejected. This rejection was not even mentioned in the website of the Council of Europe. This creates confusion, due to the unclear images of the decisions of the Committee.
The ONE OF US Federation applauds the rejection of this resolution for the second time. The report intended to add a legal framework to, thus authorizing and encouraging the practice of, surrogate motherhood despite the clear breach of women and children human dignity it induces.
ONE OF US demands the complete ban of gestational surrogacy and a clear stance by all western authorities, home of the “buyers”, to stop this traffic which involves poor women and children, most of them from developing nations.
Prof. Gian-Luigi Gigli, Italian MP and President of the Movimento per la Vita, declared: “Our society authorizes a certain form of neocolonialism through gestational surrogacy”.
The draft recommendation that was adopted will have to be approved by the same Committee and the whole Assembly, at the next PACE plenary session in Strasbourg (10-14 October). ONE OF US will continue demanding that these surrogacy practices, by which the child and the mother become a commodity to be traded, are stopped.
