The Senate approves with 84 yes votes, 58 no votes and no abstentions, the bill against surrogacy even if performed abroad by Italian citizens. The measure, which had received the green light from the Chamber on July 26, 2023, thus becomes definitive. With the green light from Palazzo Madama, surrogacy becomes a de facto universal crime: Italian couples who resort to the practice in countries where it is permitted will be punished regardless. The bill was born from the proposal of the group leader of Fratelli d'Italia in the Justice Commission of the Chamber, Carolina Varchi, which was approved in Montecitorio in July 2023 with 166 yes votes, 109 no votes and 4 abstentions. The Varchi text actually resumed the one presented by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni "in the previous legislature", as FdI senator Domenica Spinelli also recalled in the Chamber.

In Italy, surrogacy has been banned since 2004. But now, with this bill becoming law, parents who return to Italy after having resorted to the practice of surrogacy, could be charged and end up in prison for three months to two years. The fine could reach up to one million euros.

"With this measure - underlined the leader of the Lega Massimiliano Romeo - we want to avoid that the ban foreseen in Italy is circumvented, going abroad to commission a child who is then recognized in our country".

"Those who hide behind the rhetoric of "rights" to justify the practice of rented wombs should ask themselves why there is a global network of feminism that supports Italy's initiative and considers our country an example to be followed everywhere," said the Minister for Family, Birth Rate and Equal Opportunities Eugenia Roccella, questioned by ANSA. "Today, with the vote of the Italian Parliament, rights have not been denied, but on the contrary, they have been reaffirmed and finally made effective."

Roccella emphasizes "the right of fragile people, of poor women not to be blackmailed by need, of children not to be treated like merchandise from a catalogue". "The hope is that this awareness will be contagious in the world and will lead to the universal ban of this horrible practice - she adds - And to those who invoke the freedom to do with one's body what one wants, I respond that it is no coincidence that Italian law prohibits the sale of parts of oneself: you cannot sell a kidney or sell an eye, in the same way you cannot put a part of yourself on the market, with the obvious risk of heavy forms of exploitation. In Italy we have fundamental laws that prevent the exploitation of workers, it would be absurd and uncivilized - concludes the minister - to allow it with regard to an event so rich in deep and intimate emotions as motherhood".

The recently approved text consists of a single article that modifies law 40 of 2004, extending the crime abroad. During the discussion in the Senate Committee, months ago, the League attempted to propose a further crackdown by presenting an amendment that doubled the fine and increased the prison sentence to 10 years. But there was a U-turn due to the objection of the rest of the center-right. The League initially defended the amendment, explaining that it was in line with a bill it had presented in the previous legislature. But then it had to give up.

The united opposition has harshly attacked, inside and outside the Chamber, the bill, calling it, as Senator Elena Cattaneo did, "an ideological manifesto" to the "detriment of families" and "children". The center-right, in fact, as Italia Viva emphasizes, has also rejected the amendment presented by Ivan Scalfarotto with which it was requested that "the implementation" of the law should not result in "prejudice to the rights and interests of the minor" by guaranteeing "the expected obligations" for the "recognition of the filial relationship established with the de facto parents", to whom "parental responsibility is attributed".

"Today Parliament has written a black page, a very black one, for rights and freedoms," wrote the secretary of +Europa, Riccardo Magi, on his social media channels. "This is a measure that is enormous in its gravity. For at least two reasons. The first is that the birth of a child and parenthood are equated to "universal crimes" such as pedophilia and genocide. The second is that, once again, politics tries and succeeds in getting its hands on the body and self-determination of women. As if every uterus belonged to Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini and the Government majority. A legal disgrace that - Magi emphasizes - we hope will be swept away by the Constitutional Court. As far as we are concerned, we will not retreat an inch: we will continue to fight not only to cancel this rule but to make solidarity surrogacy legal here, in Italy. The body, the uterus and the freedom of women belong to women. Not to Giorgia Meloni. Not to this Government. Not to any government ."

(Unioneonline/D)

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