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| CSW70 side event by the Vatican inside the UN |
Holy Mary the first surrogate mother? Two thousand years later priests still govern our wombs at the CSW70...
Last week, UN Member States voted on the Agreed Conclusions at the 70th edition of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), in New York. It was an historic moment (normally the Agreed Conclusions are adopted by consensus) that marked the end of tense and tiresome negotiations. Progressive and conservative countries clashed over previously agreed UN language and commitments for women’s and girls’ access to justice worldwide. On both sides, civil society was advocating and lobbying to influence the CSW process and outcomes.
Tension rose steadily over the weeks and peaked during the negotiations, where conservative countries were seen openly consulting with anti-rights organizations such as C-Fam (Center for Family and Human Rights), whose advocates positioned themselves in the hallways of UN Headquarters. C-Fam is a prominent actor in the anti-gender and anti-rights civil society movement that has been working tirelessly in the past years to roll back on gender equality and women’s rights.
The Vatican at the UN
The Vatican, referred to at the UN as ‘The Holy See’, participates since 1964 as an observer in CSW processes. This gives them the right to speak and propose amendments, but not to vote. Ever since they have been extremely active in proposing restrictive measures and amendments (see also here). This year also they echoed the arguments put forward by conservative Member States closely aligned with C‑Fam’s positions. The coordinated action of the Vatican, conservative countries and the anti-gender organisations, left deep wounds in the Agreed Conclusions. Long‑standing UN language and commitments, including references to sexual and reproductive health and rights, sexual orientation and gender identity/ expression, intimate‑partner and ex‑partner violence, and even the diversity of women and girls, were removed from the final text. This does not come as a surprise, as the “gender ideology” frame can in fact be traced back to the lobby of the Vatican within the UN rights systems since the 1990s (see also here). Yet the presence and influence of these actors were not limited to the negotiating rooms: they were also prominently present at official side events and parallel events of the CSW. One such event was on surrogacy, controversially framed as a form of violence against women and girls.
The Vatican's Side Event
Half an hour before the session began, the hallways were already filling up. Twice as many people as the conference room could hold (about a hundred seats) gathered at the entrance, eager to attend the high‑level side event co‑hosted by the Vatican and Italy. The topic was polarizing and attracted a diverse crowd: nuns and priests, civil society representatives, academics, anti‑gender (or as they prefer: pro‑life) activists, and LGBTQIA+ transfeminist advocates. The title set the tone: Protecting women and children: combating violence and exploitation in surrogacy.
High‑level speakers fill the program. Italian Ambassador Giorgio Marrapodi opens the event and immediately sets the tone: surrogacy must be understood as a form of violence against women and girls. He then introduces a video message from Eugenia Roccella, Italy’s Minister for the Family, Birth Rate and Equal Opportunities. Her intervention reinforces the framing: surrogacy is not only a question of women’s dignity, but a human rights concern and a threat to the rights of children. She proudly cites Italy’s justice‑extraterritoriality as a model to emulate, highlighting Law 169/2024, which criminalizes Italian citizens even when they pursue surrogacy abroad. “Only the woman who gives birth can be called a mother,” Minister Roccella declares, while invoking the need to protect women’s bodily autonomy from exploitation.
Alicia Pomata, Paraguay’s Minister of Women, and Süreyya Erkan, Director General on the Status of Women of Türkiye, follow with speeches echoing the same principles. The family, described as “the cornerstone of society,” is framed as the union of a man and a woman who may receive “the gift of children.” Both argue that reproductive capacity is not a commodity, that surrogacy is unacceptable, and that it must be criminalized. Their speeches rhyme with anti-abortion politics, as the Paraguayan minister framed a “right to life” as the pillar of human rights.
As a progressive transfeminist activist myself and mother in a rainbow family, my jaw drops. My stomach tightens in a knot. I scan the room for solidarity from the few like-minded attendees listening to this portrayal of the family as a nativity scene, frozen in time and impermeable to reality. Another activist catches my eye, equally dismayed, while most of the audience nods along approvingly. And yet, the worst is still ahead.
Next comes Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN. His remarks focus on the commodification of children, quoting Pope Francis: children are gifts from God, not objects of a contract. He then weaves surrogacy into discussions of disability and abortion, reinforcing the moral continuum that underpins both debates: he claims that prenatal diagnosis of disability leads ‘commissioning parents’ to treat babies as “a flawed ‘product’ or a problem to be solved” rather than "as a gift” (see also here). With visible disgust, the archbishop recounts an anecdote about dozens of babies cared for by nannies in rented homes: a thinly veiled reminder of the Church’s expectation that mothers should raise children themselves, presumably without paid care or careers of their own.
The following speaker, the contested and controversial UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, launches into an uninterrupted monologue that leaves no room for questions from the audience. She coerces the vocabulary of women’s rights, framing surrogacy as violence against women, intersectional inequality, and even (reproductive) colonialism and even calls for bodily autonomy of women to argue for abolishing surrogacy. Surrogacy is repeatedly cast as violence and exploitation, with the surrogacy industry described as a multi‑billion industry that treats women’s bodies as “incubators” and “ovens,” and children as commodities. Her discourse frames women primarily as vulnerable, poor, confused by contracts, and at medical risk: subjects to be saved rather than agents to be trusted. The rhetorical pivot is unmistakable: feminist terminology, conservative policy ends (see also here).
The session ends before there is opportunity for questions from the audience, despite the programme promising otherwise. I leave with the question I had hoped to raise still burning on my tongue: What legal treatment would be reserved today for the very first (known) surrogate mother and commissioning father? According to the Bible, that surrogate was a young Palestinian woman by the name of Mary (surname unknown, as often the case in patriarchal texts) who gestated a child for the Holy Spirit and for Joseph. (Also: did Jesus have two fathers?) The foundational story of Christianity is, by any contemporary definition, a surrogacy arrangement. And yet I have little doubt that Mary, were she alive today, would be denied dignity, agency, and legal recognition under the very frameworks championed in this room.
I leave the room filled with disbelief and a deep unease at the paternalistic script that has unfolded: the more speakers invoke bodily autonomy, the more they dictate what women must not do with their bodies. The State and the Church, they claim to know better.
by Maya Declich, Atria
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