Italy passed a law on Wednesday that criminalizes seeking surrogacy abroad, a move the country’s conservative government said would protect women’s dignity, while critics see it as yet another crackdown by the government on L.G.B.T. families, as the law will make it virtually impossible for gay fathers to have children.
Surrogacy is already illegal in Italy. But the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has vowed to broaden the ban to punish Italians who seek it in countries where it is legal, like in parts of the United States.
Analysts saw the legislation as a way for Ms. Meloni to assert her conservative credentials and appeal to her political base, which disproportionately opposes surrogacy and adoption by gay couples. Italy, home to the Vatican, already ranks low in Europe when it comes to civil liberties, and Italian critics say that by imposing further restrictions on gay families, Ms. Meloni has taken a particularly hard line.
Even before it passed, the law had plunged gay families into panic. Now, they feel even more in danger, since under the new law they could be subject to prison sentences and large fines if they seek a surrogate birth abroad. » | Emma Bubola, Reporting from Rome | Wednesday, October 16, 2024
The population of Italy is in steep decline. More people are dying there than there are babies being born. So, I would have thought that Georgia Meloni would be grateful for any babies being born to Italian families, straight or gay, by natural means or through surrogacy.
No doubt for a devout, upstanding lady such as Georgia Meloni, for a person of such high morals, it must be extremely difficult to countenance babies being born in surrogacy to rainbow families, but as the old saying goes, beggars cannot be choosers.
This is a sad day for all Italian gays who dream of bringing up a family. This is a mean, unnecessary law which punishes innocent, well-intentioned, loving people — people who could give a warm, kind and loving home to truly wanted children. We know that children born in surrogacy are wanted because surrogacy is an extremely expensive route to parenthood.
With all this extreme right garbage going on both sides of the Atlantic, it is difficult not to conclude that we in the West are hurtling towards very dark times. Each passing day seems to bring more news redolent of Europe in the 1930s! These are troubling times indeed. — © Mark Alexander
