The Italian parliament approved, this Wednesday the 16th, a bill that prohibits couples from traveling abroad to resort to surrogacy. The project, flag of the prime minister’s far-right party Georgia Melonitightens the legislation in force since 2004, which already vetoed the practice in Italy.
Although it does not explicitly mention the LGBT population, the proposal restricts one of the last options for same-sex couples to have children in Italy – in the country, LGBT people already face legal barriers to adoption and access to fertilization. in vitro.
Inspection must take place when couples return to the country or during the registration of birth certificates in Italian registry offices – steps that heterosexual couples can more easily bypass, claiming that the child was conceived naturally abroad. For same-sex couples, however, this omission becomes almost impossible.
The new law classifies surrogacy as a ‘universal crime’ and extends the ban to those who perform the procedure in countries where the practice is legal, such as Canada. Couples who return to Italy with a child born through surrogacy could be fined up to 1 million euros (6 million reais) or face up to two years in prison.
Furthermore, the new wording also criminalizes Italian citizens who work as doctors, nurses or technicians in fertility clinics outside the country.
Attack on LGBT rights
The veto is another chapter in the escalation of an offensive by the Italian ultra-right against the rights of same-sex parents. In 2023, in the city of Padua, names of lesbian mothers were removed from their children’s birth certificates. That year, the Italian Interior Ministry initially ordered the city of Milan to stop recognizing non-biological parents on birth documents, a move supported by the Meloni government.
Earlier this year, the Prime Minister condemned surrogacy, calling it an “inhumane” practice that would treat children like “supermarket products”, aligning herself with the position defended by the Catholic Church.
