Catholic Bishops of Poland Call Surrogacy "an inherently evil act" and Urge Government to Prevent the Procedure

Surrogacy is an inherently evil act and cannot be reconciled with Christian faith and morality – point out members of the Polish Episcopal Conference Expert Team for Bioethics in their Position Paper on Surrogacy.

The Bioethics Expert Team states that "surrogacy is an inherently evil act and cannot be reconciled with Christian faith and morality."

The Team members point out that the desire to have children cannot be interpreted as a right to have children, "because a child, in the ontological sense, that is, as a human being, is not the property of its parents." "Conception and birth of a child cannot be the subject of a commercial transaction, neither by a woman offering her body for rent for surrogacy purposes, nor by individuals seeking to obtain children this way, nor can the practice of surrogacy be tolerated, permitted, accepted, or, much less, promoted by state institutions," we read in the Position Paper.

The Polish Episcopal Conference Expert Team for Bioethics calls on the state authorities of the Republic of Poland "to take immediate, decisive action to prevent surrogacy for Polish citizens and to block the activities of companies offering such procedures in the territory of the Polish state."

BP KEP

Full text of the Position:

The position
of the KEP Expert Team for Bioethics
on surrogacy

As more and more offers are appearing in Poland that guarantee having a healthy child through surrogacy, the Polish Episcopal Conference Expert Team for Bioethics would like to briefly recall the implications of the Church’s teaching regarding artificial reproductive techniques and their application in relation to surrogacy:

1. Surrogacy is available exclusively through artificial insemination, usually performed in vitro, which means it carries all the consequences—genetic, developmental, and psychological—of using artificial reproductive techniques. The Team's experts have repeatedly highlighted the serious consequences—both for the health of the children themselves and the threats to public health—of using in vitro in human reproductive medicine.

2. Guarantees of healthy offspring included in offers inevitably lead to the conclusion that conceived children, if genetic or developmental disorders are detected, will be killed through eugenic abortion. The Team of Experts reminds us that the murder of an unborn child is always an extremely evil act, and sometimes even a crime under current Polish law.

3. Conducting surrogacy outside of Poland does not make it legal. Quite the opposite, this practice takes on the hallmarks of international human trafficking, which cannot be justified by either the desire to have children or the consent of nearly all parties involved. The Team notes that the subject of the transaction are children, treated as commodities, not as persons endowed with the inalienable dignity inherent in their humanity.

4. In addition to human trafficking, the objectification of women who lend their bodies for surrogacy is also unjust. Their formal consent, often stemming from a desire to improve their financial status, does not make it right to treat a person as an object, even if that person does so voluntarily.

Taking into account the above arguments, the Team of Experts on Bioethics states that surrogacy is an inherently evil act and cannot be reconciled with Christian faith and morality.

The desire to have children cannot be interpreted as a right to have children, because a child, in the ontological sense—that is, as a human being—is not the property of its parents. The conception and birth of a child cannot be the subject of a commercial transaction, neither by a woman offering her body for rent for surrogacy, nor by individuals seeking to acquire children through this means. Nor can the practice of surrogacy be tolerated, permitted, accepted, or, much less, promoted by state institutions.

In conclusion, the KEP Expert Team for Bioethics calls on the state authorities of the Republic of Poland to take immediate, decisive action to prevent surrogacy for Polish citizens and to block the activities of companies offering such procedures in the territory of the Polish state.

On behalf of the Team of Experts of the Polish Episcopal Conference for Bioethics

Bishop Józef Wróbel SCJ

Warsaw, August 27, 2026

Source: https://episkopat.pl/doc/251925.Stanowisko-Zespolu-Ekspertow-KEP-ds-Bioetycznych-w-sprawie