Meloni’s surrogacy ban hits immediate backlash in Italy

ROME — Rights groups and opposition parties in Italy have condemned as “inhumane” a new ban on couples going abroad to have a baby through surrogacy.

The new law, proposed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing governing party, extends an existing prohibition on surrogacy in Italy. It targets people with a penalty of maximum two years in prison and fines of up to €1 million, if they travel to a country where the practice is legal to have a baby via surrogacy.

The ban, an election pledge by Meloni’s coalition, was passed by the Senate on Wednesday with 84 votes in favor to 58 against. Currently, an estimated 250 Italian couples a year go abroad to have surrogate children.

After the vote Meloni called the law a “rule of common sense, against the exploitation of the female body and children.” She said, “Human life is priceless and is not a commodity.”

While Meloni has projected a moderate image abroad; on the domestic front critics say she is attempting to appease hard-right core supporters with policies driven by identity politics.

Opponents to the law say it is part of a campaign to denigrate the reproductive rights of LGBTQ+ couples, who are not allowed to adopt or use in vitro fertilization in the country.

Alessia Crocini, president of Rainbow Families, a group that supports LGBTQ+ parents, said in a statement that it was an “ideological law” that formed part of “a right-wing crusade against diverse families.”

Filomena Gallo of the Luca Coscioni Association, which promotes civil rights, said the law is “useless and even harmful, if the aim is to protect people and prevent exploitation” and threatens the rights of children already born via surrogacy. The group has suggested an almost-certainly futile alternative law legalizing surrogacy without profit.

During Wednesday’s debate, Ilaria Cucchi, a senator for the Green and Left Alliance, said: “This is an inhumane act against parents and children, which only fuels stigma and discrimination.”

The introduction of surrogacy as a universal crime alongside genocide and terrorism is unconstitutional, she said, as it punishes conduct legal in the countries where it is committed.

But supporters of the legislation argue that surrogacy is exploitative of women and denies the child the right to its natural parents.

Speaking in the Senate on Wednesday, Lucio Malan, a senator for Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, equated surrogacy with “child trafficking” in which “rich families take advantage of women in need.”

While the opposition claims to defend children, he said, “we think that the worst thing that can be done to a child is to deprive them of their mother.”

The far-right League party had pushed for even harsher penalties for surrogacy, before withdrawing them earlier this year.

After the vote, League chief Matteo Salvini celebrated: “The practice of ‘wombs for rent’ becomes a universal crime. Another commitment kept. A victory against the squalid millionaires’ business that exploits women and commodifies children.”