He Italian parliament this Wednesday definitively approved the project of law that makes surrogacy a “universal crime”which will allow penalties to be imposed in the country for this practice even if it is carried out abroad. The law, introduced by the prime minister’s party, Giorgia Melonithe far-right Brothers of Italy, has been approved in the Senate by 84 votes in favor and 58 against, after receiving the approval of the Chamber of Deputies in July 2023.
Surrogacy or surrogacy has already been punished in Italy since 2004, but the new text makes it also “punishable” if carried out abroad. Specifically, the 2004 law punishes in its article 12 with fines of between 600,000 and one million euros and up to two years in prison for “whoever, in any way, carries out, organizes or advertises the trade in gametes or embryos or maternity surrogacy.”
The new legislation provides that the same article also applies to Italians who resort to this form of pregnancy outside the country. This is a law highly supported by Meloni, who on several occasions has described surrogacy “inhumane practice”.
Her Minister of Family, Eugenia Roccella, went so far as to joke about the children resulting from surrogacy, ensuring that those of mothers from the “third world cost less”and deputy Federico Mollicone assured that this practice was “more serious than pedophilia.”
State paternalism
From the opposition, the spokesman for the Democratic Party, Alfredo Bazoli, considered this law the result of “a state paternalism that transforms Italy into an ethical judge of the morality of its own citizens against the principles of political liberalism.” He also noted that “threatens to undermine relationships” with the countries that do allow this practice and asked how a person who, for example, has dual nationality, will be punished.
The senator of the Greens and Left group Ilaria Cucchi sees it as “an act of disproportionate inhumanity” against the parents who resort to this pregnancy who are, he said, 90% heterosexual. While Maria Domenica Castellone of the 5 Star Movement (M5S) warned that the Meloni Government “is getting used to prohibiting” and described the measure as “propaganda at the expense of people and children born from an act of love“. The spokesperson for Italia Viva (center, opposition), Ivan Scalfarotto, warned that “this rule is made to hit parents” who have resorted to this practice and that “the collateral victims” will be their children whose birth certificates will be “proof of a crime.”
On the contrary, the parties of the government coalition voted in favor: the conservative Forza Italia and the far-right League, whose spokesperson, Massimiliano Romeo, stated that surrogacy “is not a question of solidarity.” The senator of the Brothers of Italy Domenica Spinelli justified the measure to “disincentivize” this practice but maintained that her ultimate goal is to say “no to violence against women.”
In any case, after this approval, it remains to be known what recognition the children resulting from surrogacy already present in Italy will have. The Meloni Government has clashed over this issue with municipalities such as that of Milan (north), whose mayor, the progressive Beppe Sala, has civilly registered children of homosexual couples alleging a “legislative vacuum”.
The Italian Supreme Court ruled in December 2022 that children born through surrogacy must be recognized through the adoption process and with the approval of a judge.
