Italy’s new law classifies surrogacy as a universal crime on the same level as terrorism and genocide

On Wednesday, October 16, the Italian Senate approved a proposed bill that was already passed last year by the lower house of the Parliament, making surrogacy “a universal crime” punishable according to Italian law no matter where Italian citizens are in the world when committing it.

This new law, whose creation and promotion were carried onwards by members of the Fratelli d’Italia party that is the current government majority, expands on an already existing law dating back to 2004, which bans surrogacy—usually referred to in Italy as “gestation for others” or “renting a uterus”—throughout the country. 

The ban is now placed on Italian citizens no matter where they are in the world, and that technically should go for both the aspiring parents seeking surrogacy as well as any medical staff who facilitates it—who would all face steep fines and even jail time. There remains the question of the practical application of several aspects of this new law, which are fuzzy at best according to several legal experts and even some politicians behind the bill and would present quite the challenge for Italian lawyers and judges during a potential court case.

While statistics reported by The Washington Post show that most of the Italian citizens who travel abroad to have a child are heterosexual couples dealing with infertility issues, this new law would disproportionally affect same-sex couples—particularly gay couples, who would have a harder time explaining their return to Italy with a newborn infant than other couples would. Same-sex couples, in general, are already banned from adoption in Italy—and from marriage since the only union available to them is “a civil union”—and this furthers narrows their chances at becoming parents in a feel that feels very much targeted and could very well be.

This new law is one of the West’s most restrictive ones on the matter, even in Europe where surrogacy is much more constricted than in the United States, and it does certainly send a message about the stance Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her party have on “traditional family values” and reproductive issues—which were already quite clear to begin with. Meloni herself called it “a law against the mercification of the female bodies and of children,” in a post shared on her X (formerly Twitter) account.

Then again, this is ultimately yet another step in a considerable effort to control the culture about reproductive rights—something that isn’t exclusive to Italy but is happening all around the world as policies tend to shift towards the right everywhere. While abortion is firmly allowed in Italy thanks to a law that dates back to 1978, accessing it is often a hard, frustrating, and emotionally painful trial thanks in no small part to the intervention of several pro-life groups right down to hospital’s waiting rooms.

This law is another signal in that same direction. One that implies that even though the State doesn’t have any rights on a person’s organs even after their death—since organ donation must be agreed upon by either the person who would be doing the donation or their next of kin, in Italy just like in many other countries around the world—the only exception is a woman’s uterus. On that, apparently, the State has every right to interfere. And that is ultimately the real issue, independent of one’s own personal feelings and opinions about surrogacy.