'Casablanca declaration' calls for all governments to ban surrogacy

Over 90 international experts signed the Casablanca Declaration for the universal abolition of surrogate motherhood last week, calling for the prohibition of an internationally popular practice they say “goes against human dignity.”

Casablanca hosted a group of experts from 74 countries around the world to sign the declaration.

This text was signed at the end of a multidisciplinary seminar, by 90 experts, researchers and practitioners, lawyers, doctors and psychologists, who have been working on the issue of surrogate motherhood and its effects on people and society, on the surrogate woman and on the child.

The aim of this meeting is to shed light on the subject through an anthropological and ethical look at the practice of surrogate mothers, as well as an approach to the reality on the ground.

The signatories of the Casablanca Declaration ask States to “condemn surrogate motherhood in all its forms and modalities, whether paid or unpaid, and to adopt measures to combat this practice.”

The use of surrogate motherhood is strictly prohibited by Moroccan law. In the Kingdom, one hears little about this medically assisted reproduction technique, as most are performed abroad.

Although in Moroccan society, law and religion accept the use of medically assisted reproduction techniques, there is a limit that the three have never been able to cross.

The involvement of a third party in the process and the societal consequences that may result from it also make it necessary to ask the question of its compatibility with ethics and even with human rights.

Controversies around this topic are still widely shared at the international level, but in places like the United States, the practice has become common.

Surrogacy, or GPA, has never been legally practiced in Morocco since it is formally prohibited by Law 47-14 governing medically assisted reproduction (MAP), which was published on April 4, 2019 in the Official Bulletin.

This law, which legally recognizes infertility as a disease that affects thousands of couples, also allows to frame the practice of other techniques of medically assisted reproduction.