The Italian Parliament definitively approved this Wednesday the bill which makes GPA a “universal crime”, which will make it possible to impose sanctions in the country for this practice even if it is carried out abroad.
The law, presented by Prime Minister Giorgia’s party Melonithe extreme right Brothers of Italya, was approved in the Senate by 84 votes in favor and 58 against, after receiving approval from the Chamber of Deputies in July 2023.
Surrogacy or “surrogacy” has already been punishable in Italy since 2004, but The new text also makes it “punishable” if it is carried out abroad.
Concretely, the 2004 law punishes in its article 12 of fines of between 600,000 and one million euros and up to two years in prison to “who, in any way whatsoever, carries out, organizes or advertises the trade in gametes or embryos or surrogacy”.
The new legislation provides that the same article also applies to Italians who resort to this form of pregnancy outside the country.
It is about a law strongly supported by Meloni, who repeatedly described “wombs for rent” as “inhumane practice”.
Your Minister of Family, Eugenie Roccella, He even joked about children from surrogacy, ensuring that those from “third world” mothers cost less, and MP Federico Mollicone assured that this practice was “more serious than pedophilia”.
On the opposition side, the spokesperson for the Democratic Party, Alfredo Bazoli, considered this law as the result of “a state paternalism which transforms Italy into an ethical judge of morality of its own citizens against the principles of political liberalism.”
He also noted that it “threatens to damage relations” with countries that allow the practice and asked how someone would be punished who, for example, has dual nationality.
“Act of disproportionate inhumanity”
Green and Left Senator Ilaria Cucchi sees this “an act of disproportionate inhumanity” against the parents who resort to this pregnancy that they are, he says, 90% heterosexual.
That of 5 Star Movement (M5S) Maria Domenica Castellone warned that the Meloni government is “getting used to banning” and called the measure “propaganda at the expense of people and children born from an act of love.”
The spokesperson for Italy Viva (center, opposition), Ivan Scalfarotto, warned that “this rule is made to hit parents” that they 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 for: the conservative Forza Italy and the extreme right Leaguewhose spokesperson, Massimiliano Romeo, said surrogacy “is not a question of solidarity”.
The senator of the Brothers of Italy Domenica Spinelli justified the measure by “discourage” this practice but maintained that Its ultimate goal is to say “no to violence against women”.
In any case, after this approval, it remains to be seen what recognition the children resulting from surrogacy already present in Italy will have.
The Meloni government clashed on this issue with municipalities like that of Milan (north), whose mayor, the progressive Beppe Sala, has the children of homosexual couples registered in the civil registry, citing a “legislative vacuum”.
He 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.
This offensive against surrogacy comes in a context of decline in birth rate: National statistics institute ISTAT said in March that births had fallen to a record low in 2023, the 15th consecutive annual decline.
