The Ana Obregón case has caused a real earthquake that has reached the Congress of Deputies. Surrogacy (those who are against this practice call it surrogacy) has fully entered the social and political debate, despite the fact that it is not a new way to achieve maternity and paternity and many others (among them , also famous and rich).
Nor is it a new issue in Congress, where it has been widely discussed on numerous occasions (most recently, with the passage of the abortion law reform, which includes a ban on surrogate motherhood agencies), with the sole support of Citizens. Nor is it new in the judicial field, where even the Supreme Court (the last time, in 2022) has expressed itself emphatically and without leaving any doubt about what it thinks about the surrogacy contract: “It entails damage to the interest of the minor and an exploitation of women that are unacceptable; both are treated as mere objects, not as persons endowed with the dignity of their condition as human beingsâ€.
With the news that Ana Obregón has resorted to surrogacy to become a mother, the debate has been revived (increased by her age, 68 years), although behind so much noise generated, the reality is that its regulation will not be faced at least short term. Because no party, except Ciudadanos, has any intention of reopening the debate. Not even the PP, which in the heat of the news threatened to open up a debate on “altruistic†surrogacy (without payment to the surrogate mother, except for the expenses that this causes).
The debate will not be addressed in this legislature that will soon end, but neither will it in the next one, whatever the result, recognize deputies from the PSOE, Podemos, the PP and Vox consulted by this newspaper. And it is that all of them, who reject this practice, do not want to open a debate that they do not know where it can lead to.
And this despite being aware of the certain degree of inconsistency involved in considering this type of pregnancy illegal in Spain (2006 law on assisted human reproduction techniques) while babies are legalized (with their registration in the Civil Registry). The crime goes unpunished because it is carried out in countries where it is legal (judicial or consular documentation is required to support it) and, once here, the registration of children cannot be prevented following the guidelines of the European Court of Rights Humans (ECtHR). In fact, France has been condemned on several occasions for not allowing the filiation of these children, arguing that refusing to recognize the biological affiliation of children with their parents due to the fact of having resorted to this technique would go against the fundamental right regarding private life enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
The majority of Congress, at this time, hopes that the debate on surrogacy will again be relegated to the forgetfulness of the citizenry for a while, although they recognize that it will not be easy. The tabloids will not stop reporting on Ana Obregón.
