Filomena Gallo: “We need a law on solidarity pregnancy”

Many were indignant at the news of the alleged abandonment of the child born in Ukraine from an Italian couple with the technique of pregnancy for others: “Purchased and abandoned”, “Born on order”, “we make the uterus for rent a universal crime”, they immediately wrote from many sides, not losing the opportunity to speculate on a very delicate affair involving a minor.

Given that the abandonment of children is always a phenomenon to be countered, regardless of the “technique” with which they are born, no one has pointed out an important point, which completely overturns the interpretation of the story: if that child was born in Italy, from pregnancy for others, according to the rules set out in the proposed law to regulate this technique, developed byLuca Coscioni Association with experts and other associations and deposited in the Chamber of Deputies by the honorable Guia Termini, it could not have suffered neither a disavowal nor an abandonment. The bill, in fact, on this point provides that: “Whoever has given consent may not exercise any action of disavowal or denial of the parentage relationship”.

And in Italy the law n.40 / 04 already provides that for those born it is not possible for the father to disavow or for the mother to have the possibility of not being named at birth.

If, instead of prohibiting the solidarity pregnancy technique and invoking the “universal crime”, Italy legalized it, we would avoid the occurrence of situations such as the one that has just happened.

In fact, in any case, it should be noted that we do not know what happened on the story made known in these days, we do not know if the family has had problems in respecting the Ukrainian rules for returning to Italy or otherwise. A few days ago the couple’s lawyers declared that they deny what has been reported so far and deny that they wanted to abandon the little girl.

In any case, this episode leads us, today more than ever, to reflect on need for a solidarity pregnancy law in our country.

Because a law protects more than the prohibition. And a ban does not protect, it risks leading to abuse, illegality and situations like this or like that of May 2020, when 46 babies through pregnancy for others were stuck in a hotel with nannies in Ukraine in the middle of the pandemic. The families who had resorted to this technique – including some Italian couples – due to the border blockade imposed by the lockdown, in fact, were unable to leave their countries of origin to fetch the children and return home with them. With the Luca Coscioni Association we wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio, asking to implement all the necessary interventions so that couples could safely reach their children, who were stateless at that time, and at the same time to communicate the birth certificate. to the bodies responsible for transcription. The minister replied that the technique was prohibited by law 40, but forgetting that couples had had access to pregnancy for others in a country where it is legal and had not committed any crime, there was only a problem of returning to Italy. At the time, no one was indignant, no one intervened. Only the Ukrainian Childhood Guarantor then released the visas and guaranteed that the children born could be reunited with their families. Yet even that episode made clear the urgency of a law that would regulate this technique also in Italy.

Those who oppose these choices do not consider the enormous difficulties that people have to face in order to create a family in their country.

Everyone’s goal should be to avoid situations of regulatory uncertainty and provide full protection to the rights of all those involved, first of all, to minors.

(* Filomena Gallo is Secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association)