On 6th May 2010, the Consultative National Ethics Committee (CCNE) rendered an opinion on the ethical risks related to surrogacy or surrogate mothers. The great majority of the members pronounced in favour of the conservation of the current legislation. In France the practice of surrogate mothers is prohibited by the Bioethics law of 1994.
The reasons of the recommendation
According to the opinion, a law, restrictive as it is, could not avoid the medical risks for the surrogate mother, the risks of clandestineness or even pressure between the different contractors. Moreover, no medical prescription could not justify that “a woman put her body at a couple’s disposal“, as no law could not protect the child, the surrogate mother and the intended parents at a time in the multiplicity of the situations incurred during the pregnancy or in the uterine life of the child. The CCNE also notes that the GPA goes against the conception of an intrinsic dignity of the person. Even if the surrogate mother would be voluntary, there would be “an instrumentalisation of women body” and the consideration of the child “as a good“. We could not deny the psychological consequences that this technique could have on the latter, because the GPA ignores the ties created between the pregnant woman and the foetus during the pregnancy and which plays an important role for the harmonious development of the child. Finally, according to the signatory members, if the pain of an infertile couple is eminently respectable, it is advisable not to wait for the law to remedy all natural inequalities: “Such a conception would lead to summon the community to intervene without limit to restore the justice in the name of the equality and corresponds to the affirmation of a right to the child“.
A mixed opinion
Seven members did not vote the opinion but their position was in favour of a framed legislation of the GPA in appendix: Michaël Azoulay, Joëlle Belaisch-Allart, Claude Burlet, Danièle Siroux, Dominique Stoppa-Lyonnet, Claude Sureau and Bertrand Weil.