ROME: Surrogate parenthood is an “inhuman” practice that treats children as “supermarket products,” Italy’s prime minister said on Friday, urging parliament to pass a bill to prosecute those who go abroad for it.
Parenting via surrogacy is already illegal in Italy, punishable with jail and fines, but the right-wing coalition of Giorgia Meloni has vowed to impose an even stricter ban on it as part of its conservative agenda.
“No one can convince me that it is an act of freedom to rent one’s womb, no one can convince me that it is an act of love to consider children as an over-the-counter product in a supermarket,” she said at an event in Rome.
“I still consider the practice of uterus renting to be inhuman, I support the proposed law making it a universal crime,” said Meloni, who describes herself as a Christian mother and is a firm believer that a child should only be raised by a mother and a father.
The Italian parliament is discussing a bill drafted by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party to prohibit Italians from having a baby in countries where surrogacy is legal – such as the United States and Canada.
The party’s position echoes that of the Vatican.
The bill, approved by Italy’s lower house Chamber and now at the Senate, has been criticised by rights groups and some opposition politicians who see it as targeting LGBTQ people. And in a clear attempt to clamp down on surrogate parenthood, A government edict last year barred local mayors from registering birth certificates that list parents of the same sex.
“The issue cannot be tackled with universal prohibition, but with regulation that balances the rights at stake,” ex-foreign minister Emma Bonino told daily Corriere della Sera this week.
In India, the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 prohibits commercial surrogacy, and it also states that only a woman who is a family or close friend of the couple can become a surrogate.
(REUTERS)
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
