Once again, the Italian Government, led by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party, has displayed its neo-fascist colours to the world by successfully passing legislation to outlaw surrogacy abroad. Whilst surrogacy has been illegal in the country since 2004, Italian couples who want to conceive a child via surrogacy will no longer have access to this right even in countries where it is perfectly legal to do so. The new law, which passed by 84 to 58 votes in Italy’s senate, imposes a penalty of up to two years of imprisonment and fines up to one million euros if it is broken.
Considering that accessing surrogacy abroad was the only viable solution for LGBTQ+ couples in a country where it is illegal for them to adopt or use IVF treatment, the ban symbolises a colossal infringement on their reproductive freedoms. However, it does not come as a surprise from a government led by a Prime Minister whose public persona is constructed around her identity as the protector of the “traditional family”, which is exclusive to heterosexual couples with children. After the ban passed in the Senate, Meloni took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to express her approval of this “common sense rule against the commodification of the female body and children”, saying “human life has no price and is not a commodity“.
Protesters, however, did line up in front of the Senate during the lengthy debate carrying signs that said “we are families, not crimes”. Organisations such as ‘Famiglie Arcobaleno’, which provides support for LGBTQ+ parents in Italy, released a statement declaring that this new law encompassed a “right-wing crusade against diverse families”. Nonetheless, public support for surrogacy in Italy has never been widespread and continues to be significantly low; according to the Italian research institute ‘Eurispes’, only 36.4% of Italians approve of surrogacy.
Arguably, one of the main causes of this public disapproval of surrogacy, and of the LGBTQ+ community in general, is the blatantly homophobic rhetoric of the Catholic Church, whose regressive values are entrenched within Italian society. Although Pope Francis has now recognised the right for LGBTQ+ couples to be blessed by Roman-Catholic priests, this slight glimmer of progressivism within the Vatican does not seem to be promising, considering that it still refuses to recognise the civil union between same-sex couples as marriage.
Furthermore, the Church has persistently attempted to restrict people’s reproductive rights, by opposing IVF treatment and, of course, surrogacy. Earlier this year, in January, the Pope called for a ban on surrogacy, calling it a “deplorable” practice and reiterating that “a child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract”.
Despite this new law being an open attempt by the Italian Government and the Catholic Church to restrict the freedoms of the LGBTQ+ community, and push forward their heteronormative agenda, it must be noted that the ban will not only be infringing the reproductive rights of same-sex couples. Ironically, nine in ten of the 250 Italian couples per year who seek surrogacy abroad are straight couples, a clear sign that the Meloni Government will go to the extent of inflicting a degree of harm on their venerated traditional family structure to sustain their oppression of same-sex couples.
It should also not be forgotten that banning surrogacy is a restriction on women’s reproductive freedoms, as it reduces the right for a woman to choose what to do with her body. Yet Brothers of Italy is insistent that their ban has conferred more rights to women because, as Senator Gianni Berrino puts it, performing surrogacy reduces the woman to the “role of an incubator“, and banning surrogacy liberates women from this form of objectification.
Whilst the exploitation of women’s bodies for surrogacy is an undeniable reality that needs to be tackled with strict rules and regulations, implying that surrogacy always results in the commodification of a woman’s body suggests that women who choose to be surrogates are incapable of making that decision themselves. Many women find that becoming a surrogate is a form of empowerment, and they should have a right to make that choice if they so wish to.
Furthermore, banning surrogacy in the name of women’s reproductive rights is a deeply hypocritical standpoint for a party that clearly has no desire to see women make choices over their bodies when it concerns abortion. Indeed, Meloni’s party has allowed anti-abortion groups to access abortion clinics and provide “public support” for women who are considering terminating their pregnancies, an explicit breach of a woman’s right to make that decision without external pressures.
It is also the same party that refuses to make any amendments to law 194 of 1978, which made abortion legal in Italy, but does not explicitly state that a woman has a right to an abortion, and does not guarantee her self-determination. In fact, it has limited women’s right to an abortion by allowing Italian doctors to be “conscientious objectors”, which means that they are exempt from performing abortions if it goes against their religious beliefs. In 2021, it was found that seven out of ten doctors in Italy were conscientious objectors.
Italy is already a deeply hostile country to the reproductive rights of same-sex couples, straight couples unable to conceive children of their own, and women. With the introduction of this ban on surrogacy abroad, a further layer of oppression is successfully being added to Italy’s legal structure. One can only hope that this neo-fascist Government will fall in the next General Election, and that Italy will resume its course in reinstating reproductive rights.
