Total rejection of the Central Government and lukewarm position of the PP, main opposition party, to the news that Ana Obregón has obtained a baby through surrogacy in the United States. In Spain this practice is prohibited and contracts made by Spaniards abroad are also not recognized. Despite this prohibition (expressly included in the assisted reproduction law), there is a legal way to register minors born by this technique to avoid their lack of protection.
The Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, recalled that this practice is not legal in Spain because “the new law on sexual rights and reproductive rights (abortion law) recognizes it as a form of violence against women”. In addition, Montero asked the media not to forget the women behind it, since “there is a bias of discrimination due to poverty”.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, indicated that “in Spain wombs for hire are prohibited because women’s bodies are neither bought nor rented to satisfy anyone’s desires”. The Minister of Territorial Policy and spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, spoke in the same way, who considered surrogacy “another form of slavery”. “There are things – he observed – that cannot be bought or sold. Women’s health and physical integrity cannot be bought or sold, they are human rights that we protect and preserve.” The Executive condemns that “women’s vulnerable situations are taken advantage of for another form of slavery, which is to house a living being, a child, in the body, so that other families can then enjoy it”. According to the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, surrogacy is “an exploitation of the woman’s body”. “We do not agree – he remarked – and we have expressed it in our political programs”, said María Jesús Montero.
The comment of the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, was also resounding, describing the image of Ana Obregón’s departure from the Miami hospital as “Dantesque”. “The person who came out in a wheelchair, as far as I know, is not the woman who gave birth,” he commented. “It is necessary to call things by their name – he added -. From this you get rent, not surrogacy, a practice which, as you know, is illegal in our country”, and which he sees as “exploitation of the woman and damage to the best interests of the minor”. .
Unlike the Government, the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, pointed to a possible openness of her party to the regulation of surrogacy because “it is a complex aspect, which deserves deep and calm debates, since it affects many moral issues , ethical, religious, with many opinions on the part of Spanish society”. “It must not be forgotten – he commented – that there are children, there are minors, who have rights that must be guaranteed”.
Ciutadans is the only party that proposes to regulate surrogate management, so its deputy spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies, Edmundo Bal, stated that the Executive must propose “a legal regulation that gives security to the maintenance of the rights of minors”, even if he “does not agree” with the practice. Vox’s spokesman, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, said that his party does not have “a position taken”, despite the fact that in 2020 it proposed to ban this practice.