A surrogacy ban is not feminist

The Italian parliament made it illegal earlier this month for people to go abroad to have a baby via surrogacy.

Giorgia Meloni, the country’s first-ever female prime minister, has been battling to get the bill passed since she came into office in 2022.

For Meloni, it’s always been a fight for “feminism”. But the truth is more complex — and darker too.

Targeting LGBTQ+ families

“A common sense norm against the commodification of the female body and children,” Meloni celebrated on X. “Human life has no price and is not a bargaining chip.”

On the website of her political party, Brothers of Italy, the news is accompanied by the image of a pregnant belly turned into a piggy bank, with a one-euro coin being thrown into it.

Surrogacy has been illegal in Italy since 2004. Anyone who facilitates, organises or advertises surrogacy commits an offense of criminal relevance that can be punished with up to two years in jail and fines of up to one million euros. But now, after the October 16 vote in the upper house, the law extends the ban and the same fines and jail terms to those who go to foreign countries where surrogacy is legal.

It is unclear how the law could actually be applied, as legal experts such as Filomena Gallo told La Stampa newspaper: “It is legally inapplicable. To punish in Italy a crime committed in another country, it needs to be considered a crime there as well.”

LGBTQ+ couples, who are not allowed to adopt or use IVF in Italy, consider the legislation an attack against them. Veiled behind a discourse about the rights of women, right-wing politicians are trying to make it impossible for them to have a family, they say.

Yet approximate data show that of the 250 births by surrogate mothers who are registered in Italy every year, 90% are from heterosexual couples.

Hiding behind ‘women’s rights’

So, what is the government’s end game? Are they trying to hide behind a women’s rights discourse to make this project more palatable? Surrogacy has become a business that “demeans the dignity of women”, Meloni has said over and over again.

“Motherhood cannot become a market, women’s bodies cannot be rented out, lives cannot be bought, and we are concerned about mind-boggling numbers and figures, to the detriment of women who often find themselves in economic hardship or who in any case have as their main motive for joining this market that of the promised compensation,” said Fratelli d’Italia.

After the law was passed yesterday, Family, Equal Opportunity and Natality Minister Eugenia Roccella said: “Those who are entrenched behind the rhetoric of ‘rights’ to justify the practice of womb renting, should ask themselves why there is instead a worldwide network of feminism that supports Italy’s initiative and considers our country an example to be followed everywhere.”

It is true that there are feminists around the world who see surrogacy as a form of modern slavery and commercialisation of the body. Don’t get me wrong: I also worry about the exploitation of commercial surrogacy in “cheap hubs,” as was the case of Nepal, Kenya or Ukraine.

But I also don’t believe in these absolute bans — especially when they are hiding something deeper. If the problem is that we are not remunerating women fairly for their work carrying a pregnancy, shouldn’t that be the focus of a fight against how commercial surrogacy currently works?

Also, if we are so worried about women carrying a fetus that is not their own, why isn’t Meloni in favour of abortion too?

A different idea of family

As British feminist scholar Sophie Lewis writes in her 2019 book Full Surrogacy Now, we should expand the right of surrogate mothers towards the babies they gestate to acknowledge that surrogates are more than mere vessels, thus breaking down our assumptions that children necessarily belong to those whose genetics they share.

I simply don’t buy any of this so-called feminist rhetoric that Meloni is using. As an Italian journalist who has been covering children and the idea of caregiving for the past six years, I often find myself covering which governments worldwide really try to make people’s lives easier and which ones encourage young people to have children. Given the natality crisis in large parts of the global North is facing, this is a pertinent question.

It is also, by the way, one of the Meloni government’s foremost worries, apparently.

Perhaps these considerations are indeed connected — just not in the way they think.

To me, Meloni and people like her — I am thinking of JD Vance and his criticism of childless “cat ladies” — are interested in more children being born only if they fit within their ideas of family: heterosexual, with the right passport, and wealthy enough not to put demands on the overall state machinery.

But it is exactly that strict idea of family that is making it impossible for younger generations to think about taking on the huge responsibility of having children. The more politicians try to barge into the OB-GYN room, and the more they restrict the possibilities of who we can consider parents, the more difficult they make the prospect of building a life with children.

If instead we expand the definition of family and take collective responsibility for all children — rather than only caring for the ones we share DNA with — we can imagine a radically different and more fruitful future. And it just happens to share a vision with the proverbial village that helped humanity evolve into who we are today.

An earlier version of this essay appeared in Worldcrunch.

What I’ve been reading

In this story in Rolling Stone magazine, Eli Cahan talks to mothers in the United States whose children were taken away from them because they smoked weed. Black mothers are more likely to come under scrutiny, despite conflicting evidence on whether weed may harm newborns. The issue is crucial because it underscores racial disparities in social services and the tension between evolving drug policies and outdated enforcement practices. At the same time, it highlights how a potential drug risk is taken more seriously than family separation, even if there is clear evidence that the latter has long-term effects on nearly every aspect of a child’s health.

What I’ve been listening to

The podcast episode “We Need To Talk About Intuitive Eating“ discusses the growing popularity of intuitive eating, which promotes letting children eat freely, even including candy with dinner. Hosts question whether this hands-off approach helps escape harmful diet culture or if it’s just another fleeting trend. They delve into the potential benefits and drawbacks, reflecting on how intuitive eating fits into broader conversations about health and wellness — and it is quite an interesting reflection both on how we parents were raised in terms of our eating habits, and how our beliefs affect how we condition our children in their approach to food.

What I’ve been watching

This video by South-Korean-Japanese rapper Chanmina where she proudly shows off her pregnant belly. Some of the lyrics go: “Too skinny, too fat. Too big, too short. Dying, dying, dying, women are dying”. I found this gem through the what happened last week newsletter — a great source for non-Western news recommended by Joram, one of the members of The First 1,000 Days community!

What’s been inspiring me

In July, Sweden launched a groundbreaking new law that allows grandparents or friends of caregivers to get paid parental leave while taking care of grandchildren or children of friends. This is possible for up to three months of a child’s first year. It is hard to write about solutions for caregivers without always looking at Scandinavia — Sweden after all was the first country in the world to introduce leave for fathers 50 years ago. But this story is particularly inspiring because it pushes our thinking towards creating a wider net of caregiving, which is fundamental for children.

With love and care, 
Irene

📣 The First 1,000 Days is edited by community member and friend, Shaun Lavelle.

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