In May, a Georgia couple, 63-year-old Cheryl and her 26-year-old husband Quran, announced that they are expecting a baby via surrogate mother this December. The couple’s comments about the pregnancy show the child-commodifying mindset that develops from setting aside God and the wise ordering of his creation. 

Cheryl, who already has seven children and 18 grandchildren, stated, “We get to start our own family. I am the happiest now than I have ever been before.” Her husband Quran stated, “Even though Cheryl won't be the biological mother, blood doesn't make you family and she will be the best mom.”

While the couple is happy and states that “biology doesn’t matter,” the sweet girl they have created in a laboratory is not given the dignity owed to her. Her dignity is further disrespected by the recent announcement that the surrogate, who has a drug addiction, is now in jail. While the couple is pleased that their surrogate will no longer be able to access drugs that can harm the baby, every person involved in the conception of this child is selfishly putting their own wants before what is best for the child. 

Since this child was conceived using donor gametes, she is intentionally denied the natural right to be loved, known and raised by her biological mother. Gamete donation is morally impermissible in a Christian marriage because it violates the extension of the one flesh union, as any child so conceived is an extension of someone outside of the holy marital union. Gamete donation also intentionally causes a child to suffer the injustice of not being raised and loved by one, or both, biological parents.

Conceiving children through gamete donation profoundly affects the rights of these children by denying them the right to their mothers and fathers and causes them to struggle with a vague or nonexistent genetic identity and a variety of externalizing disorders. More than 80% of donor-conceived children desire to know the identity of their biological fathers and/or mothers, and donor children disproportionately struggle with questions about their identity, depression, delinquency and substance abuse.

One donor-conceived child stated, “Donor conception is wrong because it is geared towards fulfilling the needs of adults — at the expense of the needs of the child. Circumstances vary, but the bottom line remains the same. People believe they have a right to a child and are therefore entitled to remove a child from its kin to be raised by an alternative family.

The donor added, “If people have a ‘right’ to a child then the child loses its autonomy as a human being. Conceived with a technique that has its origins in animal husbandry, fused from two people who were never in love, never danced together, never even met, further erodes our sense of humanity. The most primal need of the child is to be loved, valued and raised by its parents. Donor conception interferes to pervert the relationship between the child and their biological parents.”

Regarding surrogacy, the act of using a woman outside of the marital union interjects a third person into the marriage union and the sacred act of conception that is reserved for husband and wife, intentionally separates pregnancy from motherhood, and suggests to the world that pregnancy is nothing more than incubation. 

Pope Benedict XVI states in Donum Vitae that surrogate motherhood “is contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person. Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological and moral elements which constitute those families.” 

When pregnancy is reduced to anything less than the special moment of the beginning of motherhood and instead as a means to get what we want, the door is opened to manipulate and exploit women and children in whichever ways we desire.

Human conception is ideally meant to occur in an act of love, as life begins where there is love, not an intention of love, which is the case with IVF and surrogacy, since both practices remove the unitive and the procreative nature of the marital act. The baby girl commissioned by this husband and wife is, of course, a human being made in the image and likeness of God, as is every child conceived outside of the marital union. However, while this baby girl’s human dignity is not lessened by the means of her conception, her inherent right to be conceived in love and viewed as a gift begotten in her mother’s womb in an act of co-creation with God is dishonored.