CIAMS petition: reject Opinion No. 86 of the Belgian Advisory Committee on Bioethics
Feminist organisations in Belgium are taking a stand against Opinion n. 86 of the Belgian Advisory Committee on Bioethics, which seeks to bringin a legal framework for surrogate motherhood.
According to the organisations signing and supporting CIAMS petition, Opinion n. 86 takes no account of women’s and children’s rights and further commodifies women’s bodies and children’s lives. Furthermore, it was solely informed by stakeholders who take a favourable approach to legalising surrogacy.
For this reason, the coalition of Belgium-based organisations demand that the Committee take into account:
- That any pregnancy involves risks and complications
- That surrogate pregnancies, due to the technology used, are riskier than natural pregnancies
- That women engaging in surrogacy hope for an improvement of their economic situation, and that the latter is significantly inferior to that of clients commissioning the baby born out of surrogacy
- That all surrogacy contracts require surrogate mothers to relinquish their fundamental rights for the entire duration of their pregnancy
- That the best interests of the child do not involve being bought or sold, as demonstrated by the recent testimonies of Olivia Maurel, born through surrogacy
- That international conventions ratified by Belgium demonstrate that surrogacy falls under the categories of child trafficking and human trafficking.
Consequently, the signatories call for Opinion n.86 to be considered null and for public opinion to be provided with genuine information about surrogacy and the human rights violations’ resulting from surrogacy.