(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 3 - A bill that would make surrogacy a
universal crime moved forward in the Senate Wednesday while a
centre right Senator filed a bill to give 1,000 euros a month
for a year to low-income pregnant women who agree not to have
abortions.
The surrogacy bill, which was approved by the upper house
justice committee on Wednesday after approval by the lower house
last month, recently saw a rightwing League amendment saying
using surrogate mothers should be punishable by 4-10 years in
jail and a fine of 600,000 to two million euros.
Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers of
Italy (FdI) party bill would make surrogacy a "universal
crime", even abroad, hopefully and controversially ending a
practice that is widely used by Italian gay couples in the US,
Spain and other countries.
The League's further stricture against surrogacy includes
punishing the public official who registers the children born
from that practice.
Both Meloni and League leader Matteo Salvini have described the
'babies for sale' practice of paying allegedly vulnerable women
and depriving infants of their natural mothers as "abominable".
The centre-left opposition is fighting the bill.
Meanwhile centre right post Berlusconi Forza Italia (FI) Senate
Whip Maurizio Gasparri launched the bill to pay poor pregnant
women 1,000 euros a month for a year not to terminate their
pregnancies in Italy, saying this 'maternity income' was a "good
incentive to protect the unborn child".
The government has already controversially allowed access to
abortion information services to pro-life activists.
It is notoriously difficult to get an abortion in Italy already
with over two thirds of the country's doctors morally or
religiously opposed to the procedure. (ANSA).
'Surrogacy universal crime' bill moves ahead in Senate
And Gasparri pushes 'maternity income' to stem abortions