Here's a story in the NYT, covering an uproar that's been in the German newspapers for a week or so now. A leader in the German governing coalition announced on social media that he and his husband had welcomed a new baby into their family, born via surrogacy in the U.S. But surrogacy in Germany is not legal, so this was a "for me but not for thee" hypocrisy moment there. (In general it's hard to ban effectively something that is legal in other jurisdictions: someone could write a book about that.)
Uproar Over Surrogate Baby Prompts German Official’s Sudden Resignation
Jens Spahn, a top leader of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, resigned his post after announcing that he had a baby by surrogate, which is illegal in Germany. By Jim Tankersley
"Mr. Spahn, 46, the leader of the party in Parliament, is a former federal health minister who has forged deep ties to the Republican Party under President Trump, including attending the 2024 Republican National Convention.
...
"Mr. Spahn stirred national outcry this week when he announced, on social media and in the tabloid paper Bild, that he and his husband, Daniel Funke, had become fathers to a son via a surrogate in the United States.
"Surrogacy is prohibited under German law. Mr. Spahn had defended that ban throughout his career, including as health minister.
"The birth announcement brought immediate cries of hypocrisy from across the political spectrum, including in Mr. Spahn’s own party. Some regional leaders of the Christian Democrats demanded his ouster. News outlets teemed with outrage.
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"Mr. Spahn defended himself, essentially, on a technicality: German law does not punish parents who use surrogates abroad. He told a podcast interviewer he had struggled with the decision but chose to prioritize his family."
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Here's a related story: German couples in need of surrogacy are not the only ones, and the US is not the only destination.
The Guardian reports:
Rise in overseas surrogates ‘increases risk of stateless babies’
Calls grow for global regulation as rising numbers of westerners use surrogates in countries with different laws by Jessica Murray and Rachel Hall
"The rise in the use of surrogates abroad is leaving more babies at risk of becoming stateless, experts have said, amid growing calls for urgent global regulation of the practice.
"The warning follows the suspension of a 15-year effort by The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) to establish a global surrogacy convention, which was paused due to divisions among member states.
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"UK surrogacy agencies argue that an outdated legal framework at home is pushing couples to seek surrogates abroad, where regulations to protect surrogates from exploitation can be less robust or do not exist at all. Anti-surrogacy campaigners say the practice is fundamentally abusive in all cases and are pushing for a global ban.
"Prof Michael Hellner, who chaired the HCCH working group, said hugely differing opinions on the ethics of surrogacy between the member states involved meant the project to create a global framework on legal parentage in surrogacy cases had proved impossible.
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"Experts said statelessness could happen in cases where a country does not automatically grant nationality to a child born there, and where surrogacy is not legally recognised in either the country of birth or the child’s final destination.
"Hellner said the project had proved difficult when some countries were “violently opposed to anything that could be seen as legitimising surrogacy, which they think is a violation of human rights and dignity”.
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"Most of these children were born abroad, mostly in the US, Ukraine, Nigeria, Georgia, Colombia and Mexico. British people using surrogates abroad to have babies are forced to apply to the UK family courts for a parental order to become the legal parents of their child and, in some cases, also need to apply for British citizenship for the child."
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