Paris, France, Jul 1, 2008 / 14:04 pm
In a press release issued on Monday about the practice of “rent-a-womb,” the president of the French Bishops’ Council for Family and Social Matters, Archbishop Jean-Charles Descubes said, “The starting of a family by a couple does not depend exclusively on the birth of a child.”
In his statement entitled, “Right to a child or right of a child?,” Archbishop Descubes said that while “the suffering of couples who cannot have a child should not be ignored,” it is necessary to keep in mind that when considering this issue, “three kinds of maternity are mixed together and at the same time separate: that of the person who donates the ovum, that the one who receives it, and that of the one who carries it. This separation creates bonds of ‘social intimacy’ until now unknown. It is different from adoption, which is a response to a situation that already exists.”