Italy has passed an anti-surrogacy law, effectively banning gay parenthood

The law, which was passed by the lower house of parliament last year and effectively secured by a vote in the Senate on Wednesday, also criminalizes the work of Italian citizens working as doctors, nurses and technicians in foreign fertility clinics that facilitate surrogates.

That and other aspects of the amended law may be difficult to enforce. Even supporters of the legislation admit that heterosexual couples will face few questions if they return to Italy with a child, or if they register their child’s birth certificate with the local municipality. Who’s to say the woman in that couple didn’t deliver the baby abroad? In contrast, a child in the arms of same-sex parents – especially two men – would amount to an obvious red flag.

“The people who can’t hide this are gay couples,” said Alessia Crocini, director of Rainbow Families, a group that opposed the law. “This is about (targeting) gay fathers.”

Same-sex couples are already barred from domestic or international adoption under Italian law. So the new law effectively closes off the last, best route for gay male couples living in Italy to start a family.

“It is nature that decides this, not us,” said Senator Susanna Campione of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, who voted in favor of the law.

“We want this example to be followed (by other countries),” she added. “This is a civilized law that protects the child but also the woman, because we believe that surrogacy essentially reduces a woman to a reproductive machine.”

After an intense seven-hour debate, the measure passed the Senate by a vote of 84-58.

Meloni – a single mother who never married her daughter’s father – has vowed to strengthen “traditional family values”. Her government and its supporters in parliament have taken steps to prevent same-sex couples from registering their children’s birth certificates and have sought to restrict gender-affirming care for minors. Legislation on issues beyond family issues, including a sweeping government-backed security bill already passed by the lower house, targets climate activists and unions by criminalizing protests that obstruct roads and railways, opponents say.

“What is clearly important for the right at the moment is to convey a message to Italian society,” said Senator Alfredo Bazoli of the opposition Democratic Party, who voted against the new law. “The message is that we are not opening doors to new rights; instead we close doors.”

Experts said the Italian move could boost debate on an international treaty on surrogacy. Pope Francis, who has labeled surrogacy as “womb leasing,” this year called for a global ban. Last year, an international convention of experts from 70 countries issued a joint decree in Morocco calling for a universal ban on surrogacy. In April, the European Parliament voted to include “the exploitation of surrogacy” among acts of “human trafficking.”

“I think Giorgia Meloni’s goal would be to push for an international convention that would abolish surrogacy,” said Léopold Vanbellingen, director of the European Institute of Bioethics. “Right now it’s clearly unrealistic, but during a Trump administration the answer could be different.”

Europe has long taken a less receptive position on surrogacy than the United States, where the practice is largely legal. Many European Union countries, including Germany and France, ban domestic surrogacy. In some of these countries, families using international surrogacy may sometimes encounter obstacles in registering their newborns as citizens. Other countries – including Turkey – have administratively barred couples from applying for cross-border surrogacy, but have failed to pass full-fledged laws.

The new Italian law, says Vanessa Brown Calder, director of family policy studies at the Cato Institute, appears to be the broadest adopted by any country.

The Italian government and its supporters insist that the law does not target same-sex couples, but rather the practice of surrogacy, which they label as immoral.

“Of course it will be easier to identify two men” with a child, said Jacopo Coghe, spokesman for the conservative advocacy group Pro Vita & Famiglia, which campaigned vigorously for the law. But he added: ‘I believe this is a barbaric practice that creates a market for children regardless of who uses it. Everyone should be punished.”

About 90 percent of the approximately 250 couples in Italy who rely on international surrogacy here each year are heterosexual. But same-sex couples are seen as the law’s most vulnerable targets.

“This law is disgusting,” said Salvatore Scarpa, who with his partner Luca Capuano had their daughter Paola last year with the help of a California-based surrogate mother. The couple said they will defy the new law and move forward with plans to implant the embryo of their second child into the same biological mother this month. “They can’t stop our family. How dare they judge us.”

An edict by Meloni’s government last year banned Italian cities and towns from registering birth certificates that listed same-sex parents, denying their children access to citizenship, public schools, health care and other benefits and services. That ruling is being challenged in court, but for now the couple has been unable to legally register their 14-month-old daughter, who lives in their home near Naples, as a U.S. citizen who has overstayed her visa. They will face the same challenges with their next child – plus the added threat of up to two years in prison and 1 million euros ($1.1 million) in fines, as outlined in the new law.

To avoid a possible customs stop at an Italian airport, they plan to fly from the United States to Paris with their newborn baby and travel by road across the open border between France and Italy. They said they would risk staying in their country and being close to their parents and loved ones, but that they would leave Italy for good “if they come for the children.”

“We don’t want them to grow up in an orphanage,” Scarpa said.

Italian legal experts call the measure vague on crucial points. Italian judges, for example, will have to decide at what point a crime is committed. When signing a contract? At birth? They say Italian prosecutors are also likely to face major hurdles in gaining access to the kind of foreign medical records they would need to investigate the involvement of Italian citizens in international surrogacy, either as prospective parents or as medical personnel. convincingly proven. The Italians would also try to perform legal acrobatics, trying to convict its citizens for actions that were legal in the country where they occurred.

Under Italian law, customs authorities at airports cannot arrest people suspected of crimes carrying sentences of less than three years. In Italy, first-time offenders are also very unlikely to be sentenced to prison.

But cases can still be referred to prosecutors by customs brokers or anyone else, and if convicted the penalties can be severe. Families would live in the shadows of fear of being reported.

“The possibility exists that you have two fathers with a child, and their pediatrician or a neighbor who doesn’t accept two fathers with a child decides to file charges,” said Vincenzo Miri, president of the Lenford Network. association of Italian lawyers advocating for LGBTQ+ rights. “That’s what they’re dealing with.”