The Italian Minister for Equal Opportunities and the Family, Eugenia Roccella, relaunches the Government’s offensive against surrogacy. A few days after the approval in Parliament of the Law that introduced the universal crime of surrogacy, a harsh confrontation took place between Minister Roccella and the doctors. The Minister of the Family invoked in a television program the doctor’s duty to file a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office about “suspicious cases” of surrogacy. The president of the Federation of Medical Associations, Filippo Anelli, has been forceful in responding to Minister Roccella’s request: “Our duty is to cure and we are exempt from reporting the person assisted.” Since surrogacy is declared a universal crime, the penalties for those who carry out surrogacy abroad are therefore extended. These are very severe penalties: prison from three months to two years and a fine of 600,000 to one million euros, for those who practice, organize or advertise pregnancy for third parties and the trade in gametes or embryos. The opposing positions of the Minister of Family and the media reflect the controversy that the approval of the Law is causing. Between surrogacy and the sale of a child, which is a crime throughout the world, “there is no difference,” observed Eugenia Roccella. “I hope – added the minister – that the application of the Law will have a strong deterrent effect”, recalling that “in Italy there is a procedure that protects minors and guarantees the possibility of the biological mother’s partner being recognized as a father.” . Related News standard No Italy declares surrogacy a ‘universal crime’ Filomena Gallo, Italian jurist: “It is a huge setback for family rights” Ángel Gómez Fuentes | Correspondent in Rome standard No Assisted reproduction is maintained in Spain: in 2022 almost 40,000 babies were born with these techniques. The minister’s position that doctors become informers has sparked indignant reactions. The president of the doctors, Filippo Anelli, has said that “we will not file complaints; “Citizens can come without fear of being treated by us.” The president of the medical associations recognizes that “the doctor must not, it is true, obstruct justice but, above all, he must not carry out acts that put the patient’s healing relationship at risk, limiting the protection of the health of citizens.” . Against homosexual couplesThe first to attend to a case of surrogacy are family pediatricians. The president of the Federation of Pediatricians, Antonio D’Avino, agrees with the president of the Medical Colleges: «We care for all children and we certainly will not denounce the parents. We assist any child from any background. It is the doctor’s job to follow all people who have problems and the pediatrician perhaps embodies this characteristic even more. Assuming that we could discover that a child was born with another person’s pregnancy, we certainly will not bother to denounce the parents,” says the president of the Federation of Pediatricians. The reaction of heterosexual couples, who are the majority of those who resort to surrogacy, coincides with the protests of the families of homosexual couples: They accuse the Meloni Government of transforming doctors into informers and Italy into a “police state.” . Experts consider that the Law will be very difficult to apply. Extending Italian jurisdiction to other countries, by declaring surrogacy a universal crime, would conflict with the principles of international law and with the laws of other countries, unilaterally intruding on their sovereignty. Difficult complianceIn short, there are many doubts about the applicability of the law, according to what the lawyer, Filomena Gallo, secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association for freedom of scientific research, told ABC: «The Law will be difficult to apply because surrogacy is regulated in 66 countries and it will not be easy to obtain international cooperation to gather evidence against those who use it abroad. Furthermore, it raises questions of constitutionality, since it could violate the right to the family, enshrined in international conventions and in the Italian Constitution.”
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