Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni regards surrogacy as “inhumane” and supports tougher penalties for the practice, including fines of up to €1 million and imprisonment for multiple year, according to CNN.
I still consider the practice of uterus renting to be inhuman, I support the proposed law making it a universal crime.
Currently, the act of surrogacy is already illegal in Italy, regardless of whether the act is paid for or not, but Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has introduced a bill that would further criminalise the act. Therefore, fines in Italy for surrogacy will grow from €600,000 to €1 million and prison sentences will also increase – now from three months to two years.
Criticism of surrogacy was voiced on Friday at the conference “For a Young Europe: Demographic Transition, Environment, Future.”
No one can convince me that it is an act of freedom to rent one’s womb, no one can convince me that it is an act of love to consider children as an over-the-counter product in a supermarket, Meloni stressed.
Earlier, Pope Francis addressed surrogacy, saying it “violates” both the dignity of the child and the woman. Surrogacy makes the child “a mere means subservient to the arbitrary gain or desire of others,” the Vatican said in the document, which also opposed in vitro fertilisation. Meloni’s comments against surrogacy are thus in line with the views of the Catholic Church.
Friday’s conference was intended to draw attention to Italy’s falling birth rate, which Meloni’s government has promised to reverse by making it easier for working mothers to find adequate childcare and other support. She said:
The demographic challenge, and the economic sustainability to which it is connected, is one of the main challenges for us.
The decision to criminalise surrogacy is largely seen as a move against the LGBTQ+ community as Italy was the last European country to legalise same-sex unions, which it did in 2016, but does not allow gay couples to “marry” as required by the Catholic Church.
Under Meloni’s government, “mother” and “father” were added to birth certificates, rather than “parent 1” and “parent 2.” In addition, in 2023, the names of lesbian mothers were removed from birth certificates in some communities where her Brothers of Italy lead the government.