The Sages of Rue Montpensier Face Senseless Surrogacy

The issue of paternity leave for the "second father," raised by the Association of Gay and Lesbian Parents and Future Parents (APGL) in early June 2025, led the Council of State to accept a priority question of constitutionality (QPC). This QPC concerns the social rights of intended parents of children born abroad through surrogacy, a topic that has sparked heated debate in France.

APGL lobbyists argue that the "second father," the partner of the biological father in a same-sex couple, should be entitled to paternity and foster care leave. This shift is not new: this leave, introduced to allow parents to care for their child, has not been exclusively reserved for the biological father since 2013.

Indeed, since then, parental leave has been available to a person sharing the mother's life, such as a stepfather. However, two circulars from the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), dated July 11 and November 7, 2024, exclude this possibility for couples who have resorted to surrogacy. The APGL is calling for the annulment of these circulars, which it considers contrary to the principle of equality.

Faced with this situation, the French Health Insurance Fund, taking into account recent decisions by the Court of Cassation regarding the recognition in France of filiations established abroad for children born through surrogacy, indicates that it is studying, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the possibility of granting a "second paternity leave" in these cases.

Pending clarification, health insurance funds are encouraged to forward requests from "second fathers" to the CNAM mediation service for case-by-case processing. This approach, however, does not satisfy the APGL, which sees it as a source of inequality.

From a Catholic perspective, surrogacy raises fundamental objections. According to Church teaching, procreation takes place within the framework of a valid marriage between a man and a woman, in which the child is conceived naturally. The magisterium therefore condemns artificial procreation techniques because of their dissociation between the marital act, procreation, and filiation.

Surrogacy is seen as an instrumentalization of the human body, transforming the child into the object of a contract and exploiting the surrogate mother. Granting paternity leave to the "second father" in this context would inevitably be perceived as an implicit recognition of surrogacy, contradicting the Catholic principles of the inalienable dignity of each person.

The Family Union (Syndicat de la Famille) – formerly Manif pour Tous – is concerned about this strategy of using "small steps" to gain implicit recognition of surrogacy in France. This movement, which plans to intervene in the QPC (priority question of constitutionality) procedure, believes that couples resorting to surrogacy abroad circumvent French law and then seek to obtain rights they should not have claimed.

Ludovine de La Rochère, president of the Union, emphasizes the need to protect women from "reproductive exploitation" and children from "commodification." Granting paternity leave to "second fathers" would be tantamount to trivializing surrogacy. She thus places the defense of ethical principles above the issue of social rights such as paternity leave.

The APGL raises another form of discrimination linked to an absurd situation: the case of transgender men (born female) who have retained their reproductive organs and are able to give birth to a child. If the "trans-man" (biological mother) is recognized as the father, the spouse will be denied paternity leave, because the law does not provide for the granting of two paternity leaves for the same couple.

Ludovine de La Rochère criticizes this demand, believing it raises legal and ethical contradictions: a person who gives birth must be recognized as a woman and benefit from maternity leave, in accordance with biological reality, and not claim the status of father. These demands subvert the law and go against the best interests of the child.

From a Catholic perspective, such a case reinforces objections to the redefinition of gender and filiation. The Church teaches that the distinction between man and woman is rooted in human nature created by God (Genesis 1:27). Granting paternity leave to a person who has given birth, or to their spouse, could be seen as a denial of this biological and spiritual reality, shattering the very notion of "family."

It must not be forgotten that it will be the children raised by these artificial couples who will bear the brunt, not to mention the future damage caused to society.

The Constitutional Council will have to decide this issue by the end of summer 2025, in a context where the most basic ethical issues risk being swept under the Orwellian steamroller of pseudo-societal rights.