Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is urging Parliament to adopt a stricter prohibition on surrogacy. Meloni called surrogacy “inhuman” and referred to it as “uterus renting.”
Surrogacy is an act that is already punishable by jail time and financial fines and has been prohibited in the nation for 20 years.As of right now, surrogacy is solely prohibited inside the nation’s boundaries.
Meloni, during a conference in Rome, referred to surrogacy as “uterus renting” and labeled it “inhuman.” Lawmakers are trying to make this a universal crime because the United States has different opinions on surrogacy than Europe.
The Vatican agency claims that surrogacy undermines both “the dignity of the woman” and “the dignity of the child” in a document released by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on April 8.Meloni, a Catholic, has been pushing anti-surrogacy message that aligns with the Vatican’s latest arguments against the Church’s objection to surrogacy.
This is a big deal to many people because the people that don’t oppose the idea of banning surrogacy have the mindset that it’s inhuman to “rent one’s womb.” “No one can convince me that it is an act of freedom to rent one’s womb,” Meloni said at the conference, according to NBC News. “No one can convince me that it is an act of love to consider children as an over-the-counter product in a supermarket,” Meloni added. “I still consider the practice of uterus renting to be inhuman; I support the proposed law making it a universal crime.”
Prior to Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s signing of legislation earlier this month to legalize and regulate compensated surrogacy, the state of Michigan forbade the practice. This overturned a 36-year-old ban on the activity. Only a few European nations—Russia and Ukraine, for example—allow paid surrogacy. Some nations, like Ireland, do not have legislation that expressly allow or forbid paid surrogacy.