The move extends a ban on the practice inside the country to also include those who seek it out in places where it is legal, like the US or Canada. Those who break the law could face up to two years in prison and fines of up to €1m (£835,710).
The law, proposed by the Italy’s far-right governing party, is seen by critics to target LGBT couples - who are not allowed to adopt or use IVF in the country.
Surrogacy is when a woman carries a pregnancy for another couple or individual, usually due to fertility issues or because they are men in a same-sex relationship.
The law passed by 84 votes to 58 in Italy’s senate on Wednesday.
I cannot understand why governments should care who someone chose as a partner or why they fucking care about personal choices made by couples.
And I understand even less the people who vote for those morons.
Because Fascists want control from the ground up.
Surrogacy is not a personal choice by a couple but a contract with a third person affecting the legal status of a fourth person.
Plenty of states where surrogacy is illegal for everyone, plenty of states where the LGBT angle doesn’t even begin to be an argument because they can adopt, use IFV, etc.
The contract is a damned sight more simple than almost any other business contract in those same states. Hell, man, it’s more simple than a freaking ToS from your phone’s app store.
Very simple contracts can be very unconscionable.
Commercial surrogacy is similar to prostitution… in theory a fair contract but in practice exploitation of poor women.
I am sure that this is not the reason why the Meloni government would ban it.
Surely. This wasn’t even their first attack on LGBT parents.
In the Netherlands you’re just not allowed to get paid for it, that seems like it would solve that part.
No way to prevent that though. Still happens.
Sure, but this ban won’t improve on that either.
Uh yes it will. You can’t really make a baby appear out of thin air you know. You’re gonna get caught either way.
Not out of thin air, but you don’t technically need much more than two people. There’s a lot of help you can get that’s useful, but you can get that abroad.
Not really. With prostitution you agree to provide a service, right here and now, in the present. With surrogacy you agree to provide a service over months, a service which will either a) cause you to have a tight bond with a child, then be legally obliged to give it up even though you might want to keep it, or b) fuck you up psychologically trying to not establish that bond.
That is: People are capable of having meaningless sex. People aren’t capable of bearing children without that being personally meaningful on a very fundamental level. Commodifying the first is meh, the latter, welcome to late stage capitalism where absolutely fucking everything is for sale.
Except that’s not what I was talking about. I never said the activity was similar. I said it’s similar in the way that both surrogacy and prostitution is an exploitation of poor women.
And btw even prostitutes can change their mind and revoke consent to a previously agreed upon activity.
If we’re talking solely exploitation of poor women then we have to add sewing in sweatshops to that list. The thing that make prostitution and surrogacy special is the degree of intimacy involved and, at least depending on person, prostitution is closer to sweatshops in that regard than to surrogacy. Not to mention that there’s also a kid involved who didn’t consent to anything at all. Adoption can be traumatic, with surrogacy that’s done with premeditation.
And yes, at least according to German law contracts about sexual services aren’t enforceable from the client side, you’re not entitled to more than your money back. In countries without legal framework the situation is generally way more nasty. And just for completeness’ sake: It’s on the list of jobs the welfare office can’t make you take up.
That sounds like something a healthy, well functioning society would do. /s
Healthy, well-functioning society would mean allowing adoption and IFV for LGBT folks and still outlawing surrogacy, or at the very least commercial surrogacy.
Probably a sign of our times that any- and everything is commodified, including mother/child bonds. What’s even more nuts is that there’s countries where prostitution is illegal but commercial surrogacy legal.
I can in no way imagine that this is legal in the EU, Schengen and everything. I mean if a Dutch person would go to Germany and drink a beer a 16 the Netherlands cannot prosecute that I think, same with a person from Germany participating in weed consumption in the Netherlands (when Germany still criminalized)
If it is legal it shouldn’t be.
Commercial surrogacy is only legal in Belgium, Ireland, and Zyprus within the EU.
If you’re e.g. German couple and sign a contract with a Belgian woman in Belgium then Germany is going to say “Yep that kid is obviously not yours, also, Belgian”, irrespective of Belgium saying “wait no it’s German”. Germany doesn’t care, Belgian law is Belgium’s problem they brought it on themselves.
States absolutely can and do prosecute things that people are doing in other states, the broader concept is called universal jurisdiction. In Germany’s case that’s: a) Some stuff that Germans do and aren’t punished (legally or practically) abroad, that doesn’t include underage drinking but it does e.g. include child sexual abuse and bribing officials, b) Some stuff that foreign citizens do that affect Germans, e.g. if a German gets murdered abroad by a non-German the authorities here will open a case, and c) Some stuff anyone doing anywhere to anyone, like war crimes and genocide.
I don’t think surrogacy should be on that list as simply not recognising the purported mother/child relation is sufficient but it’s not like the basic concept of punishing your people for things they do elsewhere is unheard of.
Aren’t these the same people who complain that young people aren’t having enough children?
They want gay people who’d plan 2 kids to be forced into loveless marriages and end up with 8 kids. They want teenagers who are thinking about coming out to decide it’s not worth it and keep up the charade.
That was my first thought as well
With the amounts of issues we have recently seen uncovered with adoptions from far away, this is not surprising. Kids stolen from parents and put up for adoption. Governments cannot supervise what goes on and under what conditions. Before you know it we will hear of human style puppy Mills.
For the people down voting: we just had a whole thing in the Netherlands with kids adopted from Shri Lanka where the foundation that arranged it all stopped and their administration was destroyed, now these adopted kids never know where they come from and can never find their birth mother.
We also had issues with adopted kids from Indonesia, literally stolen from their parents and then “sold” through adoption channels.
This is not a hypothetical. The issue is PAID surrogacy. Pregnancy should not be a business model.
