The unification and nurturing environment of a family is something that cannot be artificially manufactured or replicated. Children are a gift from God, but what happens when the parental relationship is convoluted by multiple parental roles and contractual obligations? In the case of surrogacy, the foundation of family values are often traded out for financial transactions and turning human life into a commodity.

This is why the California Catholic Conference is opposing AB 1386 by Assemblymember Autumn Burke (D-Inglewood). AB 1386 revokes all connection between a surrogate and the child she bears and births. It would legally state that, in a surrogacy context, the child’s biological mother is obsolete.

This bill would make motherhood a fungible commodity that is merely a matter of will or whim, available to those who possess the financial means to enter into a “contracted pregnancy.”  Sadly, AB 1396 could result in the creation of yet more motherless or fatherless children as our self-absorbed society ignores the needs of children and instead attempts to fulfill adult desires, disregarding the unique, precious and innate bonds between children and their biological parents.

According to a recent article from the National Catholic Bioethics Center titled “The Multiple Moral Problems of Surrogacy”:

“A woman’s reproductive powers and her God-given fecundity should never be reduced to the status of a “gestator for hire” or a “breeder” as they are sometimes called by industry insiders, nor should women be exploited by allowing payment for harvesting their eggs. A woman’s procreative powers ought to be shared uniquely through marital acts with her husband, so that all the children born of her are genetically and otherwise her own. All children merit and deserve this loving consideration and assurance of protection at the point of their fragile and sacred beginnings.”

Full story at California Catholic Conference.