Greece to Ban Surrogacy for Gay Male Couples
Lawmakers in the country plan to prohibit gay male couples from conceiving children through surrogacy, although they can still adopt.
Giorgos Floridis, Greece’s justice minister, said the government will ban gay male couples and single men from having children through surrogacy.
The government will submit legislation to parliament seeking to clarify that a law permitting medically-assisted reproduction due to “inability to carry a pregnancy” applies only to women who cannot conceive and not to cases where men may seek out a surrogate.
“We are now clarifying unequivocally that the concept of inability to carry a pregnancy does not refer to an inability arising from one’s gender,” Floridis told reporters, reported the Associated Press. “In other words, a woman may be unable to carry a pregnancy whether she is in a male-female couple, a female same-sex couple, or on her own.”
Greece legalized same-sex marriage last year, becoming the first Orthodox Christian-majority country to permit the practice. Lawmakers previously legalized same-sex civil unions in 2015.
The same-sex marriage law also permitted same-sex couples to adopt children. That right will not be eliminated for same-sex male couples even if the surrogacy ban passes.
Floridis defended the prohibition on surrogacy, arguing that Greece risks becoming an international hub for human trafficking if the law is not passed.
The Greek government claims there has been an increase in foreign women registering as single residents in Greece to become surrogates, which leaves them open for exploitation by human traffickers.
Many countries in Europe have been moving toward embracing same-sex marriage, though they either prohibit surrogacy altogether or impose restrictions on the practice.
Among the chief opponents of surrogacy are traditional conservatives, who oppose same-sex marriage, and women’s rights advocates who claim the process is demeaning to women, reducing them to a vessel for childbirth.
Last year, Italy, where surrogacy has been outlawed since 2004, went further, passing a law criminalizing couples who seek to conceive children using surrogates from countries where surrogacy is legal.
Ron Poole-Dayan, executive director of Men Having Babies, which has been working to change laws to allow couples to pursue surrogacy, expressed disappointment with the planned redefinition of who qualifies as infertile.
“We are not just dismayed by this blatant discriminatory move, but also very concerned about the perpetuation and amplification of gender stereotypes and anti-gay tropes,” he told Metro Weekly. “Traditionally, societies think of ‘childlessness’ as an unfortunate state of affairs, but in mind, they have woman, perhaps with a supportive husband. They do not think of men as being touched by the inability to fulfill what they consider as their full human potential as parents.
“Worse,” he added, “many still view gay men suspiciously when they desire to become parents. At best, they doubt that the children will flourish ‘without a mother,’ but often they even suspect nefarious motivations.”
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