Italy has strengthened its ban on surrogacy to include citizens who choose to travel to countries such as Canada and the United States for surrogacy.
Italy's Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would make it a crime for citizens to travel abroad to countries where purchasing a child through surrogacy is legal. The bill passed 84-58, and floor debate lasted about seven hours.
The bill extends an original ban enacted in 2004 that criminalized commercial surrogacy in Italy. The bill was promoted by the right-wing parties Italian Brothers and Alliance. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni heads the Italian Brotherhood party.
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Meloni, the first female and mother prime minister in Italy's history, called surrogacy “a symbol of an abhorrent society that confuses desire with rights and replaces God with money.”
Supporters of the bill say expanding the ban on overseas surrogacy protects women's dignity, while opponents say it discriminates against same-sex couples.
Under the bill, Italian citizens who seek surrogacy in countries where surrogacy is legal would be subject to fines of up to $1.1 million and two years in prison.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks to the media alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (not pictured) after a meeting at the Doria Pamphili residence in Rome, Italy, October 10, 2024. (Massimo Varricchia/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
As early as January, Pope Francis called for an end to commercial surrogacy worldwide, calling the practice “deplorable.”
“I deplore the practice of so-called surrogacy, which exploits the material needs of the mother and is a gross violation of the dignity of women and children,” the Pope said.
Although the Vatican condemns commercial surrogacy, it does not reject children born to surrogate mothers through sacraments such as baptism.
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Pope Francis insisted that “a child is always a gift, never the basis of a commercial contract.”
Opponents of Italy's surrogacy ban say the bill will hurt same-sex couples who want to start a family. Italy currently faces record low fertility rates, with 1.2 children per woman expected to be born in 2023.
Italy, Spain, France and Germany all have total bans on surrogacy. However, the UK allows surrogate mothers to receive compensation within reasonable limits for their normal expenses. In the United States, commercial surrogacy is not federally regulated.
ROME, ITALY – OCTOBER 15: People take part in a demonstration in Piazza Vidoni near the Senate, organized by Italian LGBTQIA+ associations and political parties against the Varchi bill, on October 15, 2024 in Rome, Italy. The Varchi bill is expected to be approved by Italy's parliament and would effectively criminalize parental rights for LGBTQIA+ people and strengthen Italy's already strict surrogacy (GPA) laws. Pregnancy for another person (GPA) is already illegal in Italy. Still, the legislation introduced in the Senate today by Fratelli d'Italia member Carolina Varchi is intended to strengthen the ban and extend it to surrogacy that takes place abroad. (Simona Granati – Corbis/Corbis, via Getty Images)
The client couple's names may appear on the birth certificate of a child born through a surrogate mother in the United States, and the child is often immediately separated from the birth mother.
Although the ban on surrogacy applies equally to all couples, only heterosexual couples can legally adopt children in Italy. Same-sex marriage is prohibited in Italy.
Activists from the LGBTQ movement held a protest against the new law in Italy's Senate, holding a banner that read “Parents, not criminals.”
“Commercial surrogacy, as currently practiced in some countries, typically amounts to the sale of children,” the UN special rapporteur wrote in the paper. This is the 2018 report.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
