Italian governing party wants to abolish surrogacy

On April 12th, Salvini submitted a popular law proposal to the Supreme Court, which several Catholic organisations supported. “Surrogacy is a 6 billion euro per year business that must be stopped in every possible way”, the right-wing politician told media outlets when leaving the Supreme Court.

The text intends to introduce a new article in the Criminal Code to oppose the practice, sanctioning anyone who, in any form, commissions, creates, organises or advertises it. Lega also wants a conviction for those who go abroad to circumvent the national born of surrogate motherhood. This reports the Italian news website Zazoom.

Lega already presented a similar bill in Parliament, but it was rejected. After submitting the proposal to the Supreme Court, however, Salvini can initiate legislation in another way. He, therefore, needs at least 50,000 signatures from Italian citizens. Salvini thinks he is able to do that. The Christian Italian daily Avvenire quoted him saying that “We will collect the signatures of everyone across Italy who is against the rented uterus and surrogacy. In this practice, women are used as objects and the children are sold as goods of whom you can choose the eye colour.”

The Luca Coscioni Association for Freedom of Scientific Research is not happy with the initiative. Filomena Gallo, national secretary of the association, defined Salvini’s words as “an insult to the thousands of people in our country who want to start a family and have children, but for various reasons cannot carry on a pregnancy”.