The defense of the dignity of persons from their origin.
The APG23 office in Geneva in this Human Rights Council (31st regular session of the currently ongoing and will end March 24) wanted to defend children's rights and the dignity of being a mother taking a firm stand against the phenomenon of Commercial Maternal Surrogacy.
For several months in Italy but also in other European countries (especially in France) it's discussing the practice of surrogate motherhood with a growing movement that calls for its ban .
This practice, which seems to be more and more in "fashion" especially in rich countries, provides that a couple (heterosexual or homosexual) can turn to the clinics in which to select an embryo that is then implanted into the uterus of a woman also selected.
the surrogate mother, upon payment of a fee and bound /subject of a contract, he undertakes to carry the pregnancy to term for the purchaser torque which then will have to deliver the baby or newborn baby giving up since the beginning of procedure to any relationship / connection / bond with the creature that has carried in her womb for nine months and in return for a fee only if the baby is healthy.
Recent discussions in Europe (1) and in Italy around the bill "Cirinnà" generated some debate among the public, giving echo to different and varied positions.
In the press, in particular, the newspaper Avvenire has continued and continues today to bring articles and reflections on the subject.
Taking the view that the topic should be addressed also to the Human Rights Council, APG23 becomes promoter of a written intervention that has garnered the support of four other organizations.
The practice of the Commercial Maternal Surrogacy, because of its commercial connotations precisely who see the child object, ordered and delivered to customers as if it were a pack, a commodity chosen to catalog and paid on delivery when satisfied that it is free from "withered and defects ", it is in our opinion a strong threat to human dignity and a flagrant violation of human rights, the rights of children covered by the contract and women, surrogate mothers, who are then exploited in their essence.
Then in defending the dignity of every person with our intervention we tried to defend above all the dignity of children born to this practice; Children that are planned and managed in the same way that you would handle a subject and who are denied immediately some of their fundamental rights such as the right to know of his biological mother or the right to establish a relationship with the mother pregnant woman who just for maternity contract surrogate, he can not even breastfeed.
And our concerns have also been reaffirmed with a joint oral intervention with other nine (9) organizations ; speech that was read Friday, March 11 in Room XX of the Human Rights Council in Geneva from our intern Chiara Cristiani (2) . This surgery has strongly advocated the states to promote an international resolution against this practice.
In the debate on surrogate motherhood it is often mentioned, and rightly so of women's rights violated, but much less than the rights of the child since its conception. We wanted to raise more strongly this last aspect.
In the game we think is not only the exploitation of women - although this alone would be enough already - but also the sense and the profound dignity of all living things, present and future.
(1) paragraph no. 115 of the European Parliament resolution of 17 December 2015 on the annual report on human rights and democracy in the world in 2014 and the EU's policy (2015/2229 (INI))
(2) No action. 59 per minute 02:13:50
