Michele Giarratano, father with the Gpa: “The government decides which children to protect and which not”

«Without gestation for others (Gpa), Luca and Alice would not be in the world. And that would be a shame, because they are two wonderful creatures.” Michele Giarratano, lawyer and activistis a dad in love with his own two children aged 9 and 7born after a long and complex journey, undertaken and carried forward together with her husband, Sergio Lo Giudice, a former senator.

They live in Bologna, «a particularly welcoming and prepared reality, on all levels. Suffice it to say that in the courses for teachers and educators organized by the Municipality there are specific modules on the various family realities », he explains. «Luca and Alice are much loved children in every context, and ours is a family like any other. However, not all Italian realities are equally welcoming, and we begin to breathe more and more a climate of intolerance».

How was your family born?
«Sergio and I met in Bologna in 2006 and immediately started our relationship. In 2011 we got married in Oslo, Norway in the presence of our friends and family. My desire for parenthood has always been very strong: I’ve felt it since adolescence. When my relationship with Sergio began, I shared this desire with him, who is a few years older than me and had never imagined himself as a parent until then. My desire for parenthood has been accepted and has become a shared desire, as a couple».

How did you make it happen?
«We joined the Famiglie Arcobaleno association and started to talk to the few who had already faced that path and to collect information».

A challenging path.
“Yes. Even today in Italy for a same-sex couple parenthood is a tiring process, which must be planned and pursued with determination because it is full of difficulties of various kinds, starting from contrary national legislation or from costs that are not within everyone’s reach (the expense exceeds $100,000 in medical fees, agency, attorneys, insurance, fertility clinic, and maternal reimbursement costs, ed). At the same time it is an exciting adventure, as it takes you into unexplored territory. That long and complicated journey ended in May 2014 with the birth of Luca and then, again, in October 2016 with that of Alice, and forced us to reflect at length both on our desire for parenthood and on the gestation for others itself, before embarking on the “journey”. Then it made us constantly challenge and question ourselves, grow humanly because we did it first individually, then as a couple and again together with the generous woman who carried on the two pregnancies and her family ».

How did you choose the woman who carried on the pregnancy?
«Actually we chose each other: we met and we liked each other right away, from the very first moment, and we understood that we wanted to do this journey together which then led to the birth of Luca. For Alice, naturally, we repeated the trip together: neither we nor she and her family would have wanted to repeat this experience with others ».

What relationship do you have with her?
“We still have a constant relationship with K. and his family. Luca and Alice know that they were born from her belly and that she is the special person thanks to which they were born, a family friend who lives far away with her husband and daughters, and whom we hope to go and hug again soon, now that it seems definition of the pandemic”.

If it were possible, would you have also considered an adoption?
«Both Sergio and I would have been happy to be able to adopt, but I believe that the two things should not be superimposed or opposed. For us, the genetic link with the children has never had much importance, but there may be people for whom this aspect is important, and must be respected”.

Your children have been recognized as children of both?
«When we returned to Italy, Luca and Alice, who as American citizens had two fathers and therefore two parents, found themselves for years having only me as their legal parent. This didn’t stop us from being a family, but it certainly created us various bureaucratic inconveniences, until we obtained the adoption in particular cases of Sergio of the children from the Bologna Juvenile Court. It is surreal and sad to have to adopt one’s children but, to date, adoption remains the most certain way for the protection of same-parent families, which are prevented from proceeding with the administrative registry, as we have seen in recent days”.

If Luca and Alice hadn’t been recognized as your children, what would they have gotten into?
«For years I lived in fear that something might happen to me and that the children would find themselves orphaned, adoptable, because for them in Italy Sergio was nobody. This scared me more than anything. But then there were the daily legal bureaucratic problems: I was the only parent for the Italian state, and therefore the only one to decide for them in case of illness, the only one to sign every document, the only one who could take important decisions. In everyday life, children had two parents, but the state deleted one, made it invisible”.

What do you think about gestation for others?
«I don’t know all the realities in which gestation for others is allowed: even as a lawyer who deals with these issues, I have clients who mainly turn to the USA and Canada. I can imagine that there are places where the Gpa is not always ethical, where there is a lack of strict control of women’s self-determination and the fact that there is no exploitation, even indirectly. Precisely for this reason I believe that the Gpa should be regulated, because this allows this medically assisted procreation technique to take place in a clear way, with respect for all the parties involved, as happens in the USA or Canada and certainly in other countries. I think we should talk about it more and better, trying to understand what the most controversial aspects are and dissolving doubts: after all, it would be enough just to listen to the voice of the wonderful women who have decided to give birth for others to allow new families to be born or expand”.

What is it that makes a family such?
“As they said in the Disney movie Lilo & Stitch, “Ohana means family and family means that no one is left behind or forgotten”. Family is not a set of people linked by genetic bonds, but a place where we take care of each other. The Rainbow Families association says that “it is love that creates a family”. That’s right, but that’s not enough: a family also needs protection. And the protections must come from the State, while instead this Government pushes to remove them, deciding which families and children are deserving of protection, and which are not. It’s something aberrant, but it’s not surprising, given the current government and the positions on civil and human rights”.

What do you wish for your children?
«I hope that Luca and Alice can live in a country where individual identities, personal conditions, their life plans can be considered equally legitimate and worthy of public recognition. I therefore hope that my children can live in a more welcoming and less tiring context in which I, Sergio and all the other parents found ourselves living and waging our battles for freedom».

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