At a Jan. 13 conference hosted by the Holy See and the Italian Ministry for Family, Birth Rate, and Equal Opportunities, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher offered sharp criticisms of surrogacy, the practice of a surrogate mother carrying a pregnancy for another person (“commissioning parent”). While surrogacy may help one fulfill a genuine and natural desire to have a child and alleviate the suffering of one who cannot have a child, as Archbishop Gallagher notes, this supposed “act of generosity” is in fact an act of exploitation.
Echoing the words of Pope Leo XIV, who criticized surrogacy in a Jan. 9 address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Archbishop Gallagher noted that surrogacy reduces a child to a mere product—and a mother to a mere reproductive tool.
Moreover, according to Gallagher and Roccella, both commercial and altruistic surrogacy pose a threat to the dignity of women and children. In commercial surrogacy, a surrogate receives compensation beyond medical expenses, while in altruistic surrogacy, the surrogate receives no compensation beyond medical expenses. Yet as Roccella noted, altruistic surrogacy still involves contracts, conditions, restrictions, and incentivizing compensation that could exploit impoverished women.
Together with Italy’s Minister for Family, Eugenia Maria Roccella, Archbishop Gallagher called not merely for regulation, but international prohibition of surrogacy.
The words of Archbishop Gallagher and Roccella should spur serious contemplation in Texas and the United States, where surrogacy thrives under an unusually permissive legal regime. Unlike many other Western countries that prohibit surrogacy, such as Spain, Germany, Italy, and France, only Louisiana has a meaningful regulation, which prohibits commercial surrogacy and puts conditions on altruistic surrogacy.
While the Holy See may be one of the influential and articulate critics of surrogacy, these European states do not prohibit surrogacy for reasons of moral theology. Rather, these restrictions reflect an awareness of the real harm surrogacy can inflict on women and children. According to a 2025 United Nations report, surrogate mothers may be coerced into surrogacy out of material need, only to experience high levels of depression, anxiety, and postnatal mental trauma. Moreover, they may experience physical harm, such as higher rates of hypertension, gestational diabetes, and placenta previa, and in some instances, suffer restrictive diets, treatments, or living arrangements.
The same study highlights that children born through surrogacy may face long-term identity struggles well into adulthood that stunt healthy development. Additionally, children born via commercial surrogacy are subject to opaque private contracts that effectively govern their sale, which is a crime, but are also subject to the desires of their commissioning parents, some of which may be less than honorable.
For example, in 2025, 21 surrogate children were removed from a California home after credible allegations of abuse. The surrogate mothers of these children noted that they were deceived of the intentions of the commissioning parents and had assumed they were giving children to loving and caring parents.
These harms to the dignity of women and children are even more important in light of surrogacy’s global, transnational, and commercial contexts.
A global and transnational practice, surrogacy enables the transfer of children across borders. For example, in a study of 40,177 embryo transfers in the United States from 2014-2020, 31% were for international commissioning parents. Additionally, Americans constitute a significant percentage of commissioning parents utilizing surrogate mothers in countries such as Ukraine, Colombia, Kenya, and Mexico, nations documented as having exploitative or abusive surrogacy practices.
Highly commercialized, surrogacy is a $14.98 billion industry that depends on incentivizing consumer behavior and engagement. Impoverished women are tantalized by payments-per-pregnancy, which in the United States average anywhere between $20,000 and $55,000. Reproductive tourism, the practice of travelling to countries where surrogacy is legal, incentivizes developing countries to turn a blind eye to exploitative surrogacy practices for the sake of money.
These stark realities of surrogacy ought to inspire increased regulation in Texas, where altruistic and commercial surrogacy are subject to minimal restrictions. Not only does a permissive legal regime put the lives and well-being of Texas women and children at risk, but it enables Texans to unknowingly participate in globalized networks of injury, harm, and abuse, in which Texas surrogates may hand over children who are later subjected to harm, or Texas commissioning parents may contract with surrogacy services that violate the dignity of surrogate mothers.
To protect not only the dignity of Texas women and children, but also the dignity of women and children throughout the globe, Texas should contemplate banning commercial surrogacy and strengthening regulation of altruistic surrogacy in the state. The infinite dignity of every woman and children, inalienably grounded in their being, ought to be defended not only for the sake of individual flourishing, but for the flourishing of families, communities, and Texas.
While we all may have a desire for a child, there is no right to a child that supersedes the rights and dignity of women and children alike.
