Bishops welcome EU Parliament rejection of surrogate motherhood; death penalty

European Bishops have welcomed many features of EU Parliament Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy and the EU Parliament Policy on human rights which was voted for on Thursday.

The Bishops said: "There is much in the report which those who are committed to fundamental rights and values can only welcome: this is illustrated by the fact that the report clearly calls for the abolition of the death penalty and condemns all forms of gestational surrogacy as well as the trafficking in human beings.

"Although some paragraphs in this report give rise to concern to those seeking to respect the principle of subsidiarity and some fundamental values regarding the protection of marriage and of the human life, the Secretariat of COMECE wishes to salute this overall positive outcome. We can only congratulate the European Parliament on the affirmation of such essential shared civilised values.

Read the EU Parliament report here: www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A8-2015-0344+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&ts=1450394416

See also: COMECE's Working Group on Ethics in Research and Medicine issued an Opinion on Gestational Surrogacy www.comece.eu/site/en/researchhealthbioethics?ts=1450394515 which was presented last February at the EU-Parliament.