Surrogate motherhood: unacceptable answer to infertility

Although many see surrogate motherhood as a solution to female sterility, it produces problems with the marriage relationship, parental responsibility, and parent-child bonding. Pope Pius XII condemned artificial insemination from a donor (surrogate fatherhood) because it separates procreation from marriage. This condemnation would extend to surrogate motherhood for the same reasons: Human procreation is reduced simply to transmitting biological life rather than a Christian way of living, which is a task that requires parents' commitment to each other and the child. Many other problems make this procedure unacceptable. These include commercialization, the child's possible anxiety because of its ambiguous parentage, and the surrogate's wanting to keep the child.