"Any decision, law or policy that may affect children has to take into account what is in the best interest of the child." This is one of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child which governments from all over the world, religious leaders, NGOs and other institutions signed on November 20, 1989, and which today are once again very topical. Remembering this maxim is not trivial in the face of an issue such as surrogacy, whose debate is at the forefront of the socio-cultural terrain of the West.
In a society marked by the right to have rights, the so-called right to maternity / paternity, in practices such as surrogacy, overrides the legitimate rights of the "created" minor and those of the gestating woman who becomes a mere instrument, "a 'womb' at the disposal of the contractor, opening the way to the exploitation and commercialization of the human person."The Spanish bishops have pointed out, in this regard, in a note on surrogacy.
Many legal, ethical and medical aspects are involved in this process of surrogacy, as highlighted by the many experts from different fields who have contributed to the dossier that Omnes has produced on this practice.
Realities such as the one addressed in these pages highlight the need for a transversal and committed reflection that promotes a recovery of the ethical and moral principles on which a truly humane society is based and aimed at respecting and safeguarding the dignity of every human being.
As Pope Francis recalls in Laudato Si'The common good presupposes respect for the human person as such, with basic and inalienable rights ordered to his integral development".. Putting technical and medical progress at the service of a practice that underlies, in an extreme way, an anti-human capitalism that makes the human being himself an object of transaction, economic or emotional, cannot be admitted as part of that integral development that States and citizens must serve in their social and communitarian task.
It is incumbent upon all of us to work for the common good that means "The more we care for, on the one hand, and use, on the other, that set of institutions that give juridical, civil, political and cultural structure to social life, which is thus configured as a polis, as a city. One loves one's neighbor all the more effectively, the more one works for a common good that also responds to his real needs." (Caritas in veritate, 7).
Initiatives such as the Casablanca Declaration, signed recently in the Moroccan capital, are, as the signatories themselves emphasize, a starting point for refocusing the "social gaze" on the inviolable dignity of human beings at all stages of their lives.
