Italy’s right-wing ruling coalition is moving to ban Italians from having children through surrogacy abroad, drawing fire from LGBT+ activists who say they are already being treated like outlaws for wanting to have children.
Surrogacy and its promotion has been illegal in Italy since 2004, punishable by up to two years in prison and a €600,000 fine, prompting Italians to seek surrogate mothers in other countries.
The ruling hard-right Italian Fraternity, angered by what it calls “birth tourism”, is now pushing to criminalize Italians having children through surrogacy, even in countries where such arrangements are legal.
“Surrogacy is a degrading practice that affects women who often face financial hardship,” said Carolina Varchi, an Italian Fraternity lawmaker who spearheaded the proposal in parliament. “Its purpose is to destroy by contract the idea of motherhood — an idea that exists in the laws of nature.”
Varchi believes that more and more Italians are going abroad to avoid “criminal responsibility”. “Our goal is to oppose this practice,” she said. “If someone decides to violate this law, they know they will be punished when they come to Italy.”
The draft ban – increasing the fine to €1m – has the backing of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has appointed a dedicated minister to try to reverse the country’s declining birth rate.
“Births are not for sale,” Meloni told a meeting on Italy’s demographic crisis in May. “The womb cannot be rented out.”
Surrogacy is not the only form of assisted reproduction that Italians pursue abroad. IVF is legal only for heterosexual married couples, forcing same-sex couples and single women to seek fertility treatment elsewhere.
Efforts to further limit surrogacy have angered LGBT+ activists.
“What are they going to do? Take the kids out of the family, or put the parents in jail . . . just because they don’t agree with their choices,” said Christian De Florio, 47, Ask, who is the parent of his 5-year-old twin boys and his long-term partner through a US surrogate.
Activists argued that such restrictions would eventually be deemed unconstitutional, but warned that any legal challenge would take years. This only adds to the level of anxiety, especially for would-be parents who are already undergoing surrogacy.
“Those who are pregnant — people who are pregnant — don’t know what to expect when they arrive in Italy,” said Alessia Crocini, president of Rainbow Families, an organization for gay parents. “A lot of people are very worried and scared.”
Italy has no data on how many babies its citizens give birth to through surrogate mothers each year, but Varchi estimates only a few hundred. Married couples often look for surrogate mothers in nearby Greece, Georgia, Moldova and pre-invasion Ukraine. Prospective LGBT+ parents often head to the U.S. or Canada, the only countries where surrogacy is legal for same-sex non-resident couples.
While Varchi said the ban would not retroactively or harm children, the draft law is vague about the fate of newborns born through surrogacy, or how Italians who arrive in the country with such babies will be prosecuted. “Our goal is to act as a deterrent,” Varchi said. “We want people to see surrogacy for what it is: an extremely bad thing.”
Crosini called the draft a legal-political tool to divert public attention from more serious issues, such as the government’s difficulty absorbing EU funds and other economic woes. “It’s propaganda against gay rights, civil rights,” she said. “It’s simple: you ban what is already banned in Italy.”
However, the passage of the ban will inevitably stigmatize children born through surrogacy and raised in Italy. “You’re telling children — children in Italy — that they were born with a criminal offense like rape, or a moral offense like incest,” she said.
De Florio and his partner Carlo Tomino, 37, are also concerned about the impact on their son. “We don’t want to raise our children in a society that sees their parents as thugs and robbers,” De Florio said. Tomino added: “Some people use language that assumes our family is a felony, a crime. But our family is a family like all families.”
Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome