Family Minister Eugenia Roccella said in a Friday interview that Italy might issue an “amnesty” to parents who had children through surrogacy after legislation criminalizing those who seek surrogates overseas.
Since 2004, surrogacy has been illegal in Italy, but Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government is proposing a law that would criminalize couples who employ surrogates abroad.
“We’ll have to think about some kind of amnesty once we have the new law for the prosecution of, even for those who do it abroad, given that fortunately it is forbidden in Italy,” Roccella told Discovery Italia’s Nove TV program.
In the lower chamber of parliament, a bill would extend the surrogacy prohibition to punish couples who go overseas with two-year prison sentences and 1 million euros ($1.09 million) fines.
ANSA and other Italian media broadcast Roccella’s interview, which enraged LGBT rights activists.
Rainbow Families President Alessia Crocini told ANSA it was offensive to “treat our children as… the result of an illegality, since these children were born abroad where surrogacy is legal.”
In March, Crocini claimed 90% of Italians who choose surrogacy are heterosexual couples. Still, they typically do so secretly, so the tighter ban would affect mainly gay couples who cannot disguise it.
Italian LGBT couples seeking artificial insemination, adoption, or surrogacy must travel overseas. Heterosexual couples can adopt and use artificial insemination.
Meloni, a strong family values advocate, has ordered city councils to cease registering same-sex couples’ children.
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