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       lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
       
       
       ARTICLE VIEW: 
       
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       Italy makes it illegal for couples to have a baby by surrogacy overseas
       
       By Reuters
       
       Updated: 
       
       2:15 PM EDT, Wed October 16, 2024
       
       Source: Reuters
       
       Italy’s parliament made it illegal on Wednesday for couples to go
       abroad to have a baby via surrogacy — a pet project of Prime Minister
       Giorgia Meloni’s party which activists say is meant to target
       same-sex partners.
       
       Since taking office in 2022, Meloni has pursued a highly conservative
       social agenda, looking to promote what she sees as traditional family
       values, making it progressively harder for LGBTQ couples to become
       legal parents.
       
       The upper house Senate voted into law a bill proposed by Meloni’s
       Brothers of Italy party by 84 votes to 58. The bill was already
       approved by the lower house last year.
       
       The legislation extends a surrogacy ban already in place in Italy since
       2004 to those who go to countries such as the United States or Canada,
       where it is legal, imposing jail terms of up to two years and fines of
       up to €1 million ($1.1 million).
       
       “Motherhood is absolutely unique, it absolutely cannot be surrogated,
       and it is the foundation of our civilization,” Brothers of Italy
       senator Lavinia Mennuni said during the parliamentary debate. “We
       want to uproot the phenomenon of surrogacy tourism.”
       
       Earlier this year, Meloni called surrogacy an ‘inhuman’ practice
       that treated children as supermarket products, echoing a position
       expressed by the Catholic Church.
       
       On Tuesday, demonstrators gathered near the Senate voicing their
       outrage at the bill, saying the government was lashing out at LGBTQ
       people and damaging those who wanted to have children despite the fact
       that Italy has a sharply declining birth rate.
       
       “If someone has a baby, they should be given a medal. Here instead
       you are sent to jail … if you don’t have children in the
       traditional way,” Franco Grillini, a long-time activist for LGBTQ
       rights in Italy, told Reuters at the demonstration.
       
       Rainbow Families President Alessia Crocini said 90% of Italians who
       choose surrogacy are heterosexual couples but they mostly do so in
       secret, meaning the new ban would de facto affect only gay couples who
       cannot hide it.
       
       The clampdown on surrogacy comes against the backdrop of falling
       birthrates, with national statistics institute ISTAT saying in March
       that births had dropped to a record low in 2023 — the 15th
       consecutive annual decline.
       
       “This is a monstrous law. No country in the world has such a
       thing,” said Grillini, referring to the government’s move to
       prevent Italians from taking advantage of practices that are perfectly
       legal in some countries.
       
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