The investigation by the Commission of social questions raised by the Council of Europe regarding the draft resolution on surrogacy, which should have taken place in Paris on Monday, 23 November, was postponed “due to a potential lack of Parliamentary Assembly rules governing ethics”.
In fact, the report was compiled by Belgian Senator, gynaecologist and reproductive medicine specialist, who “advocates surrogacy in the light of imprecise Belgian law” and “is helping, in practice, to circumvent the ban on surrogacy in Europe”. The “Code of Conduct for Parliamentary Assembly Reporters expressly forbids the latter from having a professional interest ‘in the subject of the report’”. The Commission has therefore opted to “investigate this situation before deciding whether it is appropriate to ‘relinquish the reporter’s role’”.
No Maternity Traffic, a European group of associations calling for the abolition of surrogacy announced that it was “satisfied with this decision” pending better “neutral, impartial and objective” conditions to investigate “such a serious topic”.
ECLJ (23/11/2015)