The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem ALSALEM, will present her report on surrogacy to the General Assembly at its 80th session in October 2025.
Responding to her call (see here), the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights sent in its contribution, addressing the issues of anonymity in relation to the best interests of the child. The authors* particularly emphasized the following points:
Anonymity concerning a child’s origins through surrogacy, with or without gamete(s) donation, undermines the principle of truth. It’s about hiding secrets and creating lies by falsifying objective scientific truths, through the legal system’s complicity.
Surrogacy is a form of exploitation and a crime of human trafficking as adopted by the European Council in April 2024.
The anonymity does not serve the child’s best interests, particularly on three levels:
a) the construction of a the child’s personal identity rooted in his origins,
b) the child as a subject, not an object of a right, and
c) the right to health and information. For this, it is important to think about this child’s best interest before his conception and birth, not after.
The authors invite the Special Rapporteur to put the child’s best interest above the commissioning couple or person’s interests who recourse to surrogacy.
The authors :
- Maroun BADR, PhD in Bioethics and Research Scholar
- Fabiano NIGRIS, Pediatrician, neonatologist and PhD candidate in Bioethics
- Alberto GARCÍA GÓMEZ, Doctor in Law, Chairholder of UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights and Dean of the Faculty of Bioethics – Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum (APRA)