Italian politicians from across
the spectrum reacted positively to Tuesday evening's vote by the
Council of Europe against recognising surrogacy agreements.
"I am pleased that the Council of Europe has rejected
regulating surrogate motherhood...a practice that I consider to
be abominable," said former health and social solidarity
minister Livia Turco of the Democratic Party (PD).
"It is a practice that damages the woman's dignity and
reduces the mother-child relationship, which is built during
pregnancy, to a mere biological fact," she added.
"I hope this decision...paves the way for surrogacy to be
declared a universal crime," said centre-right politician
Maurizio Lupi, president of the lawmakers of Area Popolare.
Centre-right former equal opportunities minister Mara
Carfagna took the same position.
"Now let Italy lead the campaign to universally outlaw this
abhorrent practice," she said in a message to her Twitter
account.
Only the Luca Coscioni association, named after the Radical
politician who died prematurely of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS) in 2006 at the age of 38, took a diametrically opposite
stance.
"Those who rejoice at the rejection by the Council of
Europe of regulation of pregnancy for others perhaps do not
realise that this decision is to the advantage of phenomena of
exploitation," secretary Filomena Gallo said.
"To combat abuse and exploitation...the freedom to have
children must be guaranteed, also using the safe reproduction
techniques offered by science. To ban women from having a
pregnancy for others means pushing couples to act
clandestinely," she added.
Surrogacy is outlawed in Italy and earlier this year a
provision introducing stepchild adoption for homosexual partners
in a civil union was scrapped from a bill regulating such unions
on grounds it could pave the way for the practice.
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