The Prime Minister of Italy, Georgia Meloni, and the Italian government are doing their best to outlaw surrogacy for all intended parents in Italy. This will disproportionately affect same-sex couples who cannot hide that their children have been born through surrogacy. Heterosexual couples, although also needing to be extremely careful, can return home with a mother and father on their child’s birth certificate and therefore, avoid suspicion. This movement to criminalize surrogacy, even gestational surrogacy, leaves intended parents, both gay and straight, in a challenging legal and societal situation.

For gay intended parents in Italy, the lack of legal recognition for surrogacy can pose additional hurdles due to societal attitudes and legal barriers surrounding LGBTQ+ rights and parenthood. Without legal protections and recognition, gay couples may face discrimination and difficulties in accessing surrogacy options compared to heterosexual couples.

Similarly, straight intended parents in Italy also face challenges due to the absence of legal regulations governing surrogacy. They may encounter difficulties i finding surrogates, ensuring the legality and legitimacy of arrangements, and navigating the complex legal landscape surrounding parentage and custody in their home country.

Moreover ,Pope Francis recently weighed in and expressed the position that all surrogacy should be banned. He and Meloni are steering this anti-surrogacy movement in Italy and for Catholics throughout the world. Both Meloni and Pope Francis fail to see how much joy surrogate mothers bring into the world, and further, that, in United States surrogacy arrangements, there are strong ethical standards to protect women who become surrogates.

In the Washington Post article, “Two Men Wanted to Start a Family. Soon, They Could be Outlaws,” Faiola and Pitrelli state that “now, under Italy’s most right-wing leadership since World War II, the government is targeting international surrogacy, as part of what LGBTQ+activists decry as a war on same-sex parenthood.” The Italian government under Georgia Meloni is attempting make a law that will criminalize international surrogacy and may cause penalties of up to 2 years in prison and/or the equivalent of over $1 million in fines.

Same-sex couples may not adopt in Italy, and they will be foreclosed from having children through surrogacy. The Italian government avers that this is not discrimination against same-sex couples but that it is to prevent the exploitation of women’s bodies. That is a shallow position. When gestational surrogacy arrangements are done in the U.S.A., with supervision by reputable surrogacy agencies such as Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists, LLC, and experienced fertility physicians, there is a very strict surrogacy ethical code that surrogacy professionals adhere to, and the main premise is to protect the rights and the autonomy of the surrogate mother, and to provide deserving intended parents with an option to have children. These parents bring into the world the most wanted and loved children. The children are gifts to the parents and to the world.

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