In Italy, the commercial transport of children by foreign mothers has been banned since 2004. Now there is a dispute over a new law that also bans surrogate mothers from having children abroad.
The medical profession rejected demands from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government to immediately report such cases from abroad to Italian authorities in the future as a call for “denunciation.” This often involves surrogacy in countries such as Ukraine or Georgia.
Possible prison sentence in the future
With the right-wing coalition’s majority in power for two years, parliament last week passed a law that also provides for penalties for Italian couples who use women abroad for such services. In the future, this will result in a maximum of two years in prison and a fine of up to one million euros.
Protests against decision
The coalition of three right-wing and conservative parties justifies the ban by saying that the traditional family must be better protected. However, from the perspective of critics, homosexual or infertile couples are denied the opportunity to have their own children. That is why there were protests against the decision last week.
Surrogacy ‘worse than pedophilia’
Family Minister Eugenia Roccella now created new excitement. The MP from Meloni’s right-wing Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party told TV channel La7: “A civil servant – and also a doctor – is obliged to report cases of suspected violations of the surrogacy law to the public prosecutor’s office. For her, there is “no difference” between surrogacy and buying or selling a child, which is a crime anywhere in the world. Other Fratelli politicians had previously said surrogacy was “worse than pedophilia.”
The president of the Italian medical association Fnomceo, Filippo Anelli, rejected the minister’s request. “Our job is to heal, not to expose.”
Italy’s birth rate continued to decline in 2023. Last year, 379,000 births were reported, 14,000 fewer than in 2022, the Italian statistics agency ISTAT recently announced. This corresponds to 6.4 births per 1000 inhabitants. The number of births in Italy has fallen by 34.3 percent since 2008, with an increase in the last year.
The average number of children per woman fell from 1.24 in 2022 to 1.20 in 2023. The historical minimum is 1.19 children, measured in 1995.
Source: Krone
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