Suzanne Harrington: 'The Pope's obsession with women’s bodies and surrogacy is creepy'

If Bergoglio is so concerned about the dignity of the child, why isn’t he absolutely apoplectic about the 10,000 Palestinian children bombed to death by the state of Israel in the past 100 days?

Suzanne Harrington. Picture: Andrew Hasson

An 87-year old man has declared surrogacy “deplorable”. The unmarried father of none has called for a universal ban, adding that “a child is always a gift” rather than “an object of trafficking.” Hang on. Surrogacy as trafficking? What? Has this senior become confused? Befuddled?

Unfortunately this wasn’t some random old guy shouting at pigeons, or sitting in a care home. It was Jorge Mario Bergoglio – the current Pope – speaking at a foreign policy event at the Vatican. Using his platform to condemn the practice of a couple who can’t make a baby themselves, for whatever private, none-of-your-business reasons, enlisting a surrogate.

And yes, when it comes to surrogacy, every baby is most definitely a gift; a life-changing gift to the childless couple, and a financial gift to the surrogate, unless she has done it for altruistic reasons. Whatever. If a woman wants to support herself and/or her loved ones by providing a childless couple with the gift of a baby, that is absolutely nobody’s business but hers. It’s not like the child is going to end up in – god forbid – some brutal orphanage run by, say, paedophile clergy; no couple goes down the surrogate route unless they really want a baby. It is the gift of gifts.

The Pope continued by saying how surrogacy “represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child”. Really? Because anyone looking at this statement might be left scratching their head; if the Pope is so concerned about the dignity of the child – let’s forget the woman for a sec – why isn’t he absolutely apoplectic, absolutely doing his nut, about the 10,000 Palestinian children bombed to death by the state of Israel in the past 100 days? (That’s a conservative estimate from Save The Children, and doesn’t include all the dead children buried under the rubble of their homes, schools, hospitals).

Where’s their dignity? Were those children not precious, beloved gifts to their parents, before they were killed in an act of collective punishment which monstrously violates the Geneva Convention? Why isn’t this Pope, generally perceived as relatively forward thinking (for a Pope, that is), using his global platform to howl at the savagery of the Gaza genocide, right now as we speak?

Why instead is he, like every Pope before him, trying to climb into the private spaces of women’s lives, to make pronouncements about stuff that doesn’t concern anyone except those directly involved – while on the other side of the Med, the dignity of children is not just being violently threatened, but annihilated on a daily basis? Where’s his full-throated, unequivocal, screaming condemnation of all that? Or is bombing children less deplorable than creating them via someone else’s uterus?

Personally, you may have long stopped listening to Popes and their underlings, but across the world this man retains a considerable voice. Why, oh why, can’t he make better use of it, instead of carrying on the church’s obsolete obsession with women’s bodies? It’s creepy. It’s gross. And it’s so, so irrelevant.