Italy has made it illegitimate for couples to travel aexpansive to have a baby via surrogacy.
A bill, passed on Wednesday, prolongs a prohibit that prohibits surrogacy wiskinny Italy to integrate those who travel to countries such as the United States or Canada where the rehearse is legitimate.
Those who fracture the law could face prison sentences of up to two years and fines of up to €1m (£836,000).
The gived law was first bcdisorrowfulmirefult about by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s right-prosperg Brothers of Italy party and seeks to back what she consents are traditional family cherishs.
However, critics have disputed it produces it persistively difficulter for LGBTQ couples to become legitimate parents.
In a protest on Tuesday ahead of the vote in Italy’s parliament, demonstrators shelp the regulatement was lashing out at LGBTQ people and damaging those who wanted to have children, despite a acutely declining birth rate in Italy.
“If someone has a baby, they should be given a medal. Here instead you are sent to jail… if you don’t have children in the traditional way,” Franco Grillini, an activist for LGBTQ rights in Italy, telderly the Reuters novels agency.
“This is a monstrous law. No country in the world has such a skinnyg.”
The bill passed thcdisorrowfulmireful the upper house of the senate by 84 votes to 58. It was consentd by the drop house last year.
During the talk about, Brothers of Italy senator Lavinia Mennuni shelp the party wanted to “uproot” the phenomenon of “surrogacy tourism”.
“Motherhood is absolutely distinct, it absolutely cannot be surrogated, and it is the set upation of our civilisation,” she shelp.
Plivent of the charity Rainbow Families Alessia Crocini shelp 90% of Italians who pick surrogacy are heterorelationsual couples, but they mostly do so in secret, nastying the novel prohibit would, by de facto, sway only gay couples.
Back in April, Ms Meloni called surrogacy an “inhuman” rehearse when speaking at an event in Rome. She shelp the process treated children as supertaget products, echoing a position conveyed by the Catholic Church.
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When vying to become Italy’s first female prime minister, Ms Meloni promised “family-cordial policies” and, much to the anger of the LGBTQ community, lauds the priority of a child being bcdisorrowfulmirefult up by a mother and overweighther – she also contests nurtureing by same-relations couples.
The clampdown on surrogacy coincides with a backdrop of droping birthrates in Italy. National statistics institute ISTAT unveiled in March that births had dropped to a write down low in 2023 – the 15th consecutive annual degrade.