By julieta villar

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 11/06/2024 / 2:15 p.m.

The “No to Trafficking” Team of the National Justice and Peace Commission of the Argentine bishops issued a statement praising the ruling of the country’s Supreme Court in a case related to surrogacy.

The court rejected the request of a marriage by “married” men who had hired a woman to have a child and wanted to be registered as parents instead of as a biological mother, which the episcopal commission described in a statement as an “exemplary sentence unprecedented”. “

He statement He noted that “the mother is the one who gives birth, regardless of the subjective self-representations and private desires of third parties.”

Furthermore, “taking into account all the rights that are involved” in relation to surrogacy, and in order to “limit any possible regulation so as not to affect the most vulnerable, that is, poor women and processed children as objects of desire”, the Supreme Court urged the nation’s Legislature to “correct the lack of regulation” on the issue.

This is the first time that the Supreme Court of Argentina has ruled on a case related to surrogacy.

The ruling rejected a legal action by a homosexual “marriage” that turned to a woman to have a child and then asked the judges for a new birth certificate that challenged the woman as a parent so that they could be considered parents of the newborn. .

In this way, the child was registered as the son of the woman who gave birth and of one of the spouses, who had given their prior consent.

The ruling makes it clear that in this matter there is no “legal loophole” in Argentina and that surrogacy or the so-called “uterus rental” is a practice contrary to the law.

For the No Trafficking Team, which is committed to “raising awareness and making visible the nature and dehumanizing effects of this new form of trafficking for the purposes of reproductive exploitation and child trafficking,” it is “timely and necessary to issue a statement, the which will be a light and educational guide for our community about this harmful and inhumane form of human trafficking.”

The issue was also addressed by Nicolás Lafferriere, a doctor in legal sciences, in his program “Por la Vida” on Radio María, who pointed out that those involved did not request prior legal authorization for the surrogacy and that, according to this court ruling, “the people cannot make contracts to change the rules of affiliation; that is, how maternal, paternal and filial ties are established.”

On the other hand, despite recognizing the “procreative will,” Laferriere pointed out that it has a limit and that limit, set by law, is surrogacy or uterus rental.

“This ruling puts an end to a series of judicial rulings that have occurred throughout the country, generally very favorable to surrogacy but outside the text of the law. So the court, in some way, is aware of this, and here it sets a limit, it sets a limit,” he pointed out.

“The judge, when the law is clear, cannot put his own criteria above the criteria of the law, and in some way he puts a limit on all those rulings that in recent years have been legitimizing surrogacy in our country. ”, he stated. said the lawyer.

The Catholic Church and surrogacy

the document Infinite Dignitaspublished in April by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith with the approval of Pope Francis, it lists 13 serious violations of human dignity.

Among them, at no. 48 states that “the Church also opposes the practice of surrogacy, through which the immensely worthy child becomes a mere object.”

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“First, the practice of surrogacy violates the dignity of the child” and “the dignity of the woman, whether she is forced to do so or freely chooses to submit to it,” the document states.

“In this practice, the woman is separated from the child that grows in her and becomes a mere means subordinated to the benefit or arbitrary desire of others,” explains the dicastery.

this story was published for the first time by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Julieta Villar has a degree in social communication from the National University of La Matanza (Argentina). She began her professional career as an editor at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA). He has collaborated in print media and communication tasks in civil society organizations. Since October 2022, he has been part of the ACI Prensa team as a correspondent for Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay.