Surrogacy Alert : New high-risk vote at the Council of Europe !
The debates on surrogacy in the Council of Europe keep being revived ! A new report with a resolution will be submitted to the Social Affairs Committee.
[PR] – Surrogacy: the ECHR shuts its Eyes on Modern Slavery
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has once again sentenced France for refusing to transcribe into its civil registers the birth certificates of children born through surrogate mothers abroad. France had already been convicted in the cases of Labassee and Mennesson for the same reasons, in June 2014.
Although the ECHR also recognises France’s right to prohibit surrogacy on its territory, in reality, it revoked the country’s ability to enforce this prohibition.
Yet, Surrogacy violates European and international law, in particular the European Convention on Human Rights, which the ECHR aims to enforce and whose Article 4 prohibits slavery.
Surrogacy is obviously a form of slavery since it consists in hiring women and acquiring a child — whether given out or sold — and this corresponds to the definition of slavery in Article 1 of the Slavery Convention: “Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised”.
Sadly, the ECHR is incoherent as it does not take measures to fight against slavery: focusing on one particular case, it overlooks the fact that its judgement will lead to a volley of effects and an increase in the practice of surrogacy, as evidenced by the decision of the French Cour de cassation of 3 July 2015.
Moreover, considering the case of one child, the failure to transcript a birth established abroad does not pose a problem: in all member states of the Council of Europe, many people live in one country while their birth has been established in another.
The practice of surrogacy is also contrary to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights because it respects neither the privacy of the woman, whose physical and mental intimacy is subverted in favour of a lucrative trade, nor that of the child who is torn away from his mother and, as the case may be, from his country.
No Traffic Maternity notes that, in asking France to compensate the two fathers who resorted to surrogacy, the ECHR does not respect the European Convention on Human Rights and abandons its mission to protect all categories of citizens.
Council of Europe: Suspension of the examination of the new De Sutter’s report on Surrogacy
On Tuesday, June 21, 2016, the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development decided to suspend its consideration on a second controversial draft report on surrogacy presented by the Belgian Senator, Petra De Sutter, pending the conclusions of the Committee on Rules of Procedure.
The meeting of Wednesday, June 22 which was supposed to study and possibly adopt the new report and a draft resolution was canceled.
According to No Maternity Traffic, this suspension is an evidence of the lack of transparency of the procedure that the group has repeatedly denounced, on a report describing surrogacy as an acceptable practice in relation to human rights. It is regrettable that a continuous opacity surrounds the proceedings of the meetings. Even as our petition was accepted by the Bureau and sent to the Social Affairs Committee to be taken into account, we are not officially informed of the content of the new report that Ms. De Sutter has attempted to present at the meeting of Tuesday, June 21.
The mandate of the rapporteur shall end in principle on October 3, 2016 and No Maternity Traffic hopes it will not be extended, given the rejection of the first report, her conflict of interest and the maneuvers of procedures that took place in the committee.
No Maternity Traffic will remain attentive to the decision of the Committee on Rules of Procedure which is to vote on certain procedural irregularities, in particular the question of whether a committee can freely dismiss the rapporteur.
No Maternity Traffic remains determined and committed to ensure that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemns and rejects all forms of surrogacy as contrary to human rights and human dignity.
[PR] – Surrogacy Bill: France should take urgent steps for international prohibition
While France is expected to examine this Thursday 16 June, two bills to strengthen the prohibition of surrogacy, No Maternity Traffic requests that the French government takes a firm step to prohibit any form of surrogacy at the international level.
The threat is clearly present today within the Council of Europe, which is supposed to guarantee human rights. A crucial issue on Human Rights and the ethical issues related to surrogacy was brought before the Committee on Social Affairs. Coming 21 and 22 June, a new report will be examined by this Committee, following the rejection of the first report last 15 March. In fact, the report and resolution submitted by the rapporteur, Petra de Sutter, aimed to give a framework to surrogacy, that is to say, allow it under conditions, whereas this practice, in principle, should not be accepted. However, the rapporteur was not relieved of her duties. Secondly, although a conflict of interest has been revealed concerning her, this conflict has not been put to vote despite the Rules of Procedure of the Council of Europe. Our group is worried to notice that the rapporteur was not replaced.
In effect, it seems the rapporteur is trying to get around fundamental ethical issues relating to women by focusing on tackling parentage problems in the event of “for-profit” surrogacy.
No Maternity Traffic condemns a strategy that is inconsistent with the responsibility of the parliamentarians of the Council of Europe to ensure the application of human rights.
No Maternity Traffic requests that the French government takes a firm step to stop the adoption of this report so that the position of the petitioners will really be taken into account by the Committee, that is to say, surrogacy should be strictly forbidden.
The group, which brings together European NGOs fighting for human dignity and human rights, fully supports all legislative steps aimed at the universal prohibition of surrogacy, especially those submitted in France in June 2016.
The No Maternity Traffic petition was found admissible during the meeting of the Bureau on 26 May 2016. The Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly decided to transmit the petition to the Committee on Social Affairs for consideration in the preparation of the report on Human rights and the ethical issues related to surrogacy. The 107,957 European signatories of the petition are calling on the authorities of the Council of Europe to undertake to effectively abolish and prohibit the practice of surrogacy. No Maternity Traffic is calling for a citizen action on 21 and 22 June in Strasbourg to push the parliamentarians of the Council of Europe to unanimously condemn surrogacy regardless of the form.