Italy’s feisty Interior Minister Matteo Salvini came out swinging against surrogate motherhood Monday, insisting on every child’s right to a mother and a father.
“The State should not enter the bedroom and no one should be discriminated against for his affective choices,” Mr. Salvini tweeted, “but as long as I live I will defend the right of every child to have a mom and a dad.”
“The thought of a womb for rent and women for sale makes me sick,” he said.
Mr. Salvini, who will be speaking at the upcoming “World Congress of Families” in Verona, embedded a video of himself making the same point with different words: “I think womb for rent is the most squalid thing a person could propose, for a woman, for a man, for a child.”
Earlier, Salvini — who supports the traditional family — expressed a similar point, saying, “Speaking about the family always gives rise to arguments and I don’t want to take anything away from anyone.”
“I merely think that renting wombs and women as ATMs to gestate children does not reflect the future I have in mind,” he said.
The question of surrogate motherhood is hotly debated in Italy and is often tied to the question of same-sex marriage and adoption.
In 2015, legendary gay fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana found themselves in hot water when they came out strongly against gay marriage and the use of surrogacy to procreate offspring.
“The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offspring and rented uterus. Life has a natural flow; there are things that cannot be changed,” they said.
“Procreation must be an act of love,” they added.
“I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Uteri for rent, semen chosen from a catalogue,” Dolce declared.
Their statements earned them the ire of the LGBT lobby, and soon afterward, Elton John called for a boycott of Dolce and Gabbana products.
“Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again,” Mr. John posted on his Instagram account.
The 13th annual “World Congress of Families,” coordinated by the U.S.-based International Organization for the Family (IOF), is also hotly contested.
A recent article in the Italian daily La Repubblica lumped together “Neofascists, Anti-Abortionists, and Homophobes” as part of the “list of deplorables” that would be descending on the northern Italian city of Verona for the pro-family rally, which will take place March 29-31.
The article, written by pro-LGBT journalist Giampaolo Visetti, defines the family meeting as “the world summit of anti-abortion and antigay,” which is linked to the “European far right.”
“Universities, international organizations, center-left parties, and students” have denounced the “Christian radicalism and anti-EU sovereignty” that undergird the movement, Visetti said.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome
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