On Sunday April 19, 2026, Lux Terra Chapel joined other Catholic communities in Nigeria to celebrate Mother’s Day, during which event the beauty, the sanctity and the dignity of the Motherhood vocation among Christians were highlighted and celebrated. The event at Lux Terra Chapel featured a talk by Dr. Gloria Ode on some of the abuses associated with the ever increasing resort among Nigerian single women or married couples to surrogate motherhood. Some of the growing practises in this area, it was revealed, amount to an abuse of the female body, and an affront on the divine vocation and dignity of motherhood.
While acknowledging the pain of childless couples who desperately desire to have their own children, the awareness of members was raised regarding the widespread exploitation of poor young girls whose eggs are harvested for some IVF procedures, and who are often paid a pittance, or those whose wombs are rented with paltry sums for the gestation of babies.
Such procedures, the speaker revealed, often involve complex invasive medical interventions, but the poor vulnerable woman hired for the task often knows very little of the possible long-term negative physiological and psycho-emotional implications of the processes they are subjecting themselves to.
Such practises according to discussants at the event, apart from reducing motherhood to mere economic transactions, amount to trafficking in the gammets, the organs and the bodies of poor vulnerable young women. The development is particularly troubling in the case of rich Nigerian women who suffer no infertility problems, but who resort to surrogacy, just so that they keep their body shape that could be affected in the process of pregnancy and childbirth.
It was observed that IVF and surrogate motherhood are so far largely unregulated areas in Nigeria medical practise. It was therefore resolved that the time has come for concerned individuals and agencies, including the leadership of Christian Churches to mount pressure on the Federal Government to urgently put in place adequate and effective regulatory frameworks for the practise of IVF and surrogate motherhood in Nigeria.
A critical highlight of the Mother’s Day celebration at Lux Terra was the call by Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, the Chaplain, for all men in the Chapel to stand up and apologise on behalf of the menfolk of all generations for the widespread lack of acknowledgement of the immense sacrifices that motherhood entails, and for the physical, sexual and psychological abuses and/or violence that many mothers and women have suffered at the hands of men in the past. This gesture on the part of the men in the Lux Terra chapel, was received with a thunderous applause from all the women present.
