Working paper 3: Italy case study – Provisional findings and policy proposals

INTRODUCTION

WoMoGeS is a comparative study on the different positions, frames, strategic alliances, policy making and mobilization of women’s movements (WMs) on gestational surrogacy (GS) in USA, Mexico, and Italy. This is the third research report and it is based on data collected for the Italy case study. Discussions offered in this report need to be considered provisional, in so far the development of comparative analysis of the three cases will contribute to achieve more comprehensive conclusions.

In Italy GS is prohibited: Law n. 40/2004 on assisted reproduction provides from 3 months to 2 years of reclusion and 600.000 – 1.000.000 euro penalty for those who realize, organize or advertise the trade of embryos and gametes and surrogate motherhood. Despite this prohibition, Italian heterosexual and same-sex couples go abroad – especially in Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Unite States, Canada and India (before restrictive policy introduced since 2016 by the Indian Government) – to become parents through surrogacy. There are no data available on how many children per year are born through GS abroad for Italian clients. However, it is estimated that every year 100 Italian women use GS abroad to have babies (because hindered by medical issues to carry out pregnancy).¹

The debate on Law 40 which inflamed in the 2000s was focused on «the criteria for eligibility to medically assisted procreation techniques, the protection of the subjective rights of the persons involved, the risks related to invasive medical practices, and the meaning of human life in the embryonic phase».² At that time GS was only marginal in the public debate: despite prolife groups already in 2013 had promoted a committee to reaffirm that there can be one only mother, GS hit the headlines and reached massively the public opinion not before 2015, during a fiery debate around the reform of family, civil union and step-child adoption.

The analysis of the press that I conducted on the main Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera (2018-2019) shows that the GS debate pivots around cases of Italian couples (especially same-sex), returning to Italy and facing the problem of obtaining legal recognition of their parental status: surro-children often remain in legal limbo when local governors or judges refuse to transcribe foreign birth certificates with two fathers insofar this is not contemplated by the Italian law. Although the majority of couples resorting to GS internationally are heterosexuals, discussion on GS in Italy intertwines with discussion on homo-parenting and is influenced by a media portrayal of GS as a method for gay men to have babies. GS is described in the media as a reproductive practice which is illegal in Italy whilst it is allowed in foreign countries such as Canada and the United States; it is acclaimed by some as a form of civil rights and condemned by others as a form of commodification of women and children. This study also finds that GS debate in Italy is highly politicized and social movements are key discourse makers: feminist groups, prolife organizations, and rainbow family associations are heard in the media and are in dialogue with political representatives, who engage in the issue through public statements and legislative proposals.

Women’s movements (WMs) in Italy, led by feminist group Senonoraquando-Libere (SNOQ-L), started to call for a universal ban of GS in 2015. Since then several initiatives have been promoted by a feminist network against GS, which includes SNOQ-L, ‘Resistance Against Womb For Rent’ (RUA) (feminist group born in 2015), Arcilesbica (the main lesbian Italian group), Unione Donne Italiane (one of the oldest feminist associations in the country), Resistenza Femminista (feminist group against prostitution and pornography), RadFem (feminists opposing prostitution, biomarkets and erasure of sexual differences) and also gay activists who take distance from the dominant pro-surrogacy position of LGBT movement. Since the start of mobilization in 2015, Italian feminists have worked closely with French feminists who are leader of the international alliance for the abolition of surrogacy (CIAMS/ICAMS). Italian feminists also adhere to the US-based transnational campaign Stop Surrogacy Now (SSN).

Outside these networks who explicitly ask for the total ban of GS, there are other feminists (such as those linked to the magazine Leggendaria, and individual opinion makers such as Michela Murgia and Chiara Lalli) who are more open to reflect on the possibility of legalization of GS, in its so-called altruistic form or even in its commercial version. Some feminists (such as Casa delle donne di Lecce) sympathize with demands for legalization and regulation of GS, which are advocated primarily by the association for same-sex and rainbow families (Famiglie Arcobaleno), and by associations for civil and human rights in scientific research, reproduction, and sexuality (Associazione Luca Coscioni and Associazione Radicale Certi Diritti). However, feminists are not overtly protagonists or principal initiators of these regulatory demands.

Italy is an interesting case for a study on GS politics for the following aspects: for Italian couples GS is a reproductive option only if they are available to go abroad and behave in legal limbo; the debate on GS is primarily contextualized within the debate on homo-parenting; WMs, pro-lifers and pro-family groups mobilize for the universal ban of GS and for the enforcement of national prohibition; the civil battle against GS is played primarily on cases of recognition of parental rights, especially for same-sex couples, over children born from GS abroad.

This document starts with an overview on the principal events which mark the development of GS debate and mobilization since 2015, with emphasis given to actions undertaken by feminist groups. The second part offers a discussion on thoughts, frames, alliances and policy making in Italian feminist mobilization. In conclusion the characteristics of Italian case study will be summarized.

DEFINING MOMENTS OF GS DEBATE AND MOBILISATION

GS began to be a topic of public debate in 2015-16 in the context of the inflamed debate around the family reform that would have regulated same-sex marriage and step-child adoption. Conservative groups linked to Catholic civil society and the Church (such as pro-life and pro-family advocates) and some feminists, claimed that the legalization of step-child adoption would have indirectly legitimized and encouraged the use of GS abroad. At that time the media were giving visibility to the case of Nichi Vendola, a leftist politician and advocate for gay rights, who with his male partner got a child through GS in Canada. Although the majority of GS clients in the world are heterosexuals, Italian public opinion was introduced to GS as a practice spread in the gay world, challenging the traditional family order and posing the problem of legal recognition of children with “two dads”. In a nutshell, GS has been positioned in the public imaginary as an issue of homo-parenting.

On 5^th December 2015 the feminist group Snoq-L launched an appeal to the European Union to ban GS. With this appeal, Snoq-L substantiated its alliance with the French feminists led by Sylviane Agacinski and the Collectif pour le Respect de la Personne (CORP), who on following 2^nd February 2016 organized an assembly in the French Parliament to request an international convention for the total abolition (Paris Charter). In the same year also pro-family organization Generazione Famiglia (Italian branch of French La Manif Pour Tous) launched an appeal asking the Council of Europe the total ban of GS.

In addition to opposing the introduction of step-child adoption, Parliamentarians in the Christian-democratic area (Area Popolare such as Giovanardi, Alfano and Lorenzin) also proposed to extend the prohibition of GS provided by Law 40 to cases of Italian citizens using GS abroad and returning to Italy with children.

On 2^nd February 2016 Provita NGO convened a press conference at the Senate where it was invited as main speaker Elisa Anna Gomez, American surrogate who conducted a long legal battle for obtaining the permission to see the child she had gestated for a same-sex couple (Gomez died in 2016 under unclear circumstances).

In July 2016 journalist Monica Ricci Sargentini published on the main Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera an investigative video report in which a Californian agency was advertising GS to potential clients at an hotel in Rome. Following the reportage, the public prosecutor opened an investigation. The year before also Provita NGO denounced a similar initiative held in Milan.

In September 2016 a group of lesbians led by activist and sociologist Daniela Danna launched a position paper against GS in which they asked States to reaffirm the ‘mater semper certa est’ principle, to protect children from commodification, and thus to oppose all attempts of legalization.

In 2016 one of the most renowned feminists and philosopher Luisa Muraro published a small book titled L’anima del Corpo. Contro l’utero in affitto (La Scuola, 2016): Muraro, in contrast to the assumption that women’s bodies are available, exalts the special bond between mother and child. In the same year feminist blogger and coordinator of RUA Marina Terragni published Temporary Mother. Utero in affitto e mercato dei figli (Vanda, 2016) in which she frames GS as a market that exploits women and deletes the mother from a new-patriarchal regime, and in doing so it satisfies the historical male envy of women’s reproductive power.

In February 2017 the Court of Appeal of Trento established that the prohibition of GS is not sufficient to deny the recognition of parental status of two men who had engaged in a parental project through surrogacy in Canada.

In the same year it was published a book by Snoq-L’s leader and academic Francesca Izzo titled Maternità e libertà (Castelvecchi, 2017) in which she reflects on the epochal shift in the significance of motherhood and freedom. The feminist mobilization against GS culminated in the international meeting in Rome of 23^rd March 2017: “Moherhood at the crossroads: from free choice to surrogacy. A global challenge”, again promoted by Snoq-L as part of the project “Let’s take motherhood back”. The meeting yielded a recommendation to CEDAW in which the signatories called for banning GS as a violation of women’s dignity and human rights.

In November 2017 the feminist network against GS promoted a survey which revealed that 71% of Italians would like that GS remains illegal. The survey was conducted on a sample of 800 adults: 48% was unconditionally against a possible legalization, 23% was favourable to altruist GS only.

GS has been also a topic of political debate during the 2018 Parliamentarian election campaign insofar the defence of traditional family was one of the main points of the Right parties agenda.

In 2018 Italian feminist groups joined the appealed launched by the international coalition CIAMS/ICAMS asking candidates running for the 2019 European Parliament elections to engage in the battle for a total abolition of GS .

In the same year Provita and Generazione Famiglia (now merged in one NGO) organized a visual communication campaign, with billboards in Rome, Milan and Turin, to sensitize public opinion against GS. The Mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi claimed that one of the billboards that was showing two men carrying a baby inside a shopping cart was homophobic and against children’s dignity, and thus ordered the immediate removal and penalty for the organizers; however the advertisement authority (Gran Giurì dell’Istituto di Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria) soon after ascertained that the billboard was regular and not offensive.

In 2019 the aforementioned feminist network (including Snoq-L, RUA, etc.) convinced, through auditions, the Major of Milan to stop transcribing birth certificates with two dads. The network demand was (and is) one of transcribing only the biological parent while the partner should go through the process of special adoption (adozione in casi particolari). Later, this position has been also confirmed by the Supreme Court (Cassazione, Sezioni Unite).

In February 2019 some Senators of the Right party Lega presented a law proposal (ddl Pillon) to embitter the penalty already provided by law 40 and to explicitly forbid the registration of children with two male or female parents.

In May 2019 the Supreme Court (Cassazione 12193/2019) ruled that the execution of a foreign judicial order that recognizes a legal parentage status between two children and their non-biological father cannot be allowed in Italy: indeed the prohibition of surrogacy provided by Law 40 is a public order principle, which builds on the acknowledgment that will of parenting is not limitless and on the faculty of each State to permit or prohibit GS (as established by the European Court of Human Rights in Mennesson e Labassee c. Francia in 2014).³

In June 2019 during a conference held at the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), the association for freedom in research Luca Coscioni, and radical organization for civil Rights Certi Diritti presented a law proposal aimed at legalizing GS for all, with no discrimination based on sex-orientation. Among the supporters of this proposal there is Monica Cirinnà, the Member of Parliament who had been since 2015 the main supporter of the introduction of step-child adoption.

To celebrate the International Day against Violence Against Women on 25^th November 2019, the Equal Opportunity office of the City Council of Rome held a public conference on GS where representatives of Snoq-L spoke. This event, despite its local scope, is worth a mention insofar it acknowledges GS as a form of VAW.

In 2020 Snoq-L launched a petition to the Italian Left-wing parties (which are ruling the Government) inviting them to take a united and clear position against GS as done by the Spanish Left-wing coalition that recently included in their governmental agenda the support to abolition of GS.

In spring 2020 GS hit the headlines again: the COVID-19 pandemics revealed the hypocrisy of institutions and society that turn a blind eye towards the diffused use of GS abroad despite the prohibition in place in Italy. During lockdown, 46 newborns were temporarily ‘stocked’ at Hotel Venezia in Kiev while waiting to be picked up by commissioning parents from different countries, including Italy. In May the surrogacy agency Biotexcom launched a video appeal inviting commissioning parents to ask their National authorities special permits to go to Kiev and get their babies. The feminist network against surrogacy asked the Italian Ambassador in Ukraine to reject any permit and ensure that custody of the babies commissioned by Italian citizens is assigned to their surrogates or alternatively to adoptive parents.

In July 2020, on the wave of the Kiev case, Deputy President of the House of Representatives, and former Minister to Equal Opportunity, Mara Carfagna, presented a law proposal to render GS a prosecutable crime abroad.

GS IN ITALIAN FEMINISM. THOUGHTS, FRAMES, MOBILIZATIONS AND POLICY-MAKING

GS is certainly a divisive topic for feminism, internationally and in Italy too. Italian abolitionists can be traced back to “difference feminism”, a stream of feminism which highlights the uniqueness of female nature and the power of women’s reproductive capability. This stream, inspired by and developed in dialogue with French feminists, has been dominant in Italian Second Wave feminism. “Difference feminists” reject the constructivist approach to sex identity which is instead promoted with increasing visibility by so-called “gender feminists”. The latter believe in the full self-determination of gender identity regardless of one’s biological sex: motherhood in this view is not a typical trait of the woman but it can be played by all genders.⁴

The division is not only theoretical but it is expressed also in terms of conflict and polarization on the following issues: call for regulation/abolition of sex work, recognition/rejection of transgenders as women, and support/opposition to GS. In Anglo-American social movements, feminists who frame sex work and reproductive work as neoliberal forms of exploitation of women’s body and defend the typicality of female sexual identity are labelled as Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism (Terf) and Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist (Swerf): these categories have been applied also in Italy as derogatory labels for GS Italian abolitionists.⁵

Interestingly, GS abolitionists also include the principal lesbian organization Arcilesbica and a group of gay activists (led by Aurelio Mancuso, former President of the main gay organization Arcigay) who dissociate from LGBT dominant pro-surrogacy position. Such composition reflects the one of the French abolitionist movement.

It is also worth noticing that the abolitionist demand not only comes from “difference feminists” and lesbians, but also from pro-lifers and pro-family groups: although these two fronts are available for dialogue on GS, they do not organize joint initiatives and they remark that they are not allied. Such firmness in maintaining distances derives from different views on family, women’s emancipation and gender roles in modern society, and especially because on divergent views on abortion. Feminist abolitionists build their demands on the following arguments: GS is a form of commodification and exploitation of women’s reproductive capacity and body; it is dangerous for women’s and children health and their psychological well-being; it is against human dignity and denies the mother-fetus bond. Pro-life and pro-family organizations build their strong opposition to GS on different premises than those of feminists. While feminists view GS as an expression of the patriarchal culture and male-dominated biotechnology, pro-lifers see GS as an advanced form of disruption of the natural order, and as a violation of the child’s right to be conceived and brought into life by his own parents.⁶ Despite these different underpinnings, the frame of women’s commodification, which is primarily a feminist frame, is applied by pro-lifers too; on the other hand feminists speak not only about commodification of children but also about commodification of life, which is the dominant frame of pro-lifers; motherhood, the mother-foetal bond and surrogates’ sufferance are exalted by both fronts; health risks for surrogates and children are common topics of concerns for the two fronts.

According to feminist abolitionists the problems (diagnostic frames) with GS are the followings:

• GS commodifies women’s and children bodies: it reduces women to reproductive machines, pregnancy to a job, and children to objects/products
• GS is a form of VAW
• GS deprives women of freedom during pregnancy
• GS exploits vulnerable women who are already subjugated by economic needs and family pressures; GS also takes advantage from women’s altruistic inclination and from the mystique of motherhood
• GS is an expression of patriarchal envy towards female reproductive capability
• GS is dangerous for women and children’s health and deprives children of their identity
• GS impedes the relationship between the mother and the newborn, as well as family continuity
• GS is a form of market invasion in human life
• GS increases global inequality
• GS is a form of appropriation of female identity (which builds on her capacity of giving birth); so-called gender feminism approves this appropriation
• GS is legitimized in the name of an assumed right to offsprings and a culture of individual limitless rights which is encouraged by left-wing politics
• GS is presented through edulcorated media coverage of celebrities having babies and narratives of individual autonomy
• GS is encouraged by low control/enforcement of the Italian Law 40 (which prohibits GS and advertisement of GS): automatic transcription by Italian authorities of foreign birth certificates, lack of coordination between Italian authorities abroad, foreign countries and Italian civil registries, non-criminalization of Italian citizens having babies through GS abroad, are all conditions that contribute to increasing use of GS abroad.

The solutions or the envisioned cures (prognostic frames) are the followings:

• Universal ban of GS to be achieved through UN and EU declarations (as for international condemnation of slavery and female genital mutilations)
• Application of international agreements such as: the European Charter of Fundament Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminations against Women (CEDAW), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Slavery Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, the Council of Europe Convention on the Adoption of Children, the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings; the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine
• Case by case enforcement of Law 40 through the following discouraging mechanisms as part of a coherent administrative and institutional response: consulates should inform judiciary authorities in Italy about irregular entries and suspects of GS; only the biological parent can be transcribed in Italian civil registries while the other parent should go through special adoption process (adozione in casi particolari) which implies family assessments by the Children Court (Tribunale per i Minori); the name of the surrogate should be transcribed in civil registries; GS should be included in the list of crimes that are prosecutable abroad (as for sexual tourism); bilateral agreements between countries; an observatory on illicit publicity of GS should be established at the Ministry of Interiors; foreign agencies that advertise GS in Italy should be prosecuted.
• simplification of adoption law and process, which should also be open to same-sex couples
• lobbying on international organizations to contrast the influence of infertility industry
• reaffirmation of the ‘mater semper certa est’ principle (the mother is the one who gives birth)
• coalitions and coordination within feminism should be strengthened
• Left-wing parties should take a unitary position against GS (as done by Spanish ruling coalition)
• sensitization of public opinion on implications and risks of GS
• principles of human dignity and integrity of non-usable bodies should be reaffirmed, the belief in limitless rights and genderless culture should be contrasted.

There are also feminists who are more open to GS. These feminists adopt a liberal approach towards individual behaviours: they believe freedom of choice should not be limited through moral / paternalistic arguments such as assuming that women (especially in poor countries) are incapable to make choices. They disagree with the prohibitive approach adopted by abolitionists. In their view prohibiting GS would mean reducing women’s freedom of choice on whether to be or not to be mothers; rejecting the technological possibility of breaking up motherhood in different stages and subjects would contribute to the reaffirmation of biological supremacy in the understandings of motherhood and female identity. These feminists read GS as a modern version of practices that have been always existed, such as children who were born from servants and raised by their masters, or cases of mothers who choose to give their newborn away (for adoption). They suggest to think GS as a procreative practice in which the centrality and power of women are reaffirmed, and as a possibility to redefine parentage. In a nutshell, the freedom of women to decide whether to gestate their own or others’ embryos, and whether to become mothers of their own or others’ fetuses, should not be limited. The right to become parents comes only after (thus depends on) the woman’s choice and the woman’s power to give birth.

According to these feminists, prohibition would be a problem because:

• it would endanger women’s self-determination and freedom to choose on whether to use their pregnancy for others
• it reaffirms biologism in definition and meaning of motherhood (backlash of achieved freedom to be woman regardless the status of mother)
• it is based on paternalistic views of women as victims who are incapable to make choices
• abolition would open the door to criminal organizations

They think it is important to:

• continue reflections and debate on GS by avoiding moral categories, by collecting evidences and analysing legal frameworks of countries with permissive regulations
• be open to redefine parentage and family models
• reaffirm the concept that motherhood is a free choice and does not necessarily correspond to pregnancy

If we look outside feminism, at rainbow families and civil rights organizations, those who advocate for legalization of GS build their demand on the principles of non-discrimination in becoming parents: the possibility to have babies should be freely pursued as inviolable rights to self-determinate one own’s personal life (by everyone, singles and couples of all sexual orientation), also through access to assisted reproductive technology. They recall that the European Court of Human Rights on 26 June 2014 ruled that the prohibition of surrogacy is a violation of children’s rights to family life and a violation of article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights to the respect of private life (privacy). The other core principle is the autonomy of women in deciding whether to use their body to help others to have babies. The prohibition established by law 40, according to these advocates, renders aspiring parents (and subsequently children born through surrogacy) more vulnerable to risks and legal incertitudes insofar their only chance to have babies is going abroad (reproductive tourism).

To sum up, positions on GS are polarized on those who oppose it as a form of women’s exploitation, erasure of mother, and commodification of children, and those who support it as a form of reproductive freedom and control over one own’s body. Both streams exist within Italian feminism. However, it is important to acknowledge that whilst opposition to GS is visible, insofar it generates events and coalitions, there is not in Italian feminism any established and organized front that advocate for GS legalization. This is rather a demand coming from other civil society groups, which nevertheless get support also by some feminist groups and individuals.

CONCLUSIONS

What is different in Italy from other case studies in USA and Mexico is that in Italy the public debate on GS arose from a strong opposition to GS and that feminist abolitionists have a prominent role in rendering GS a hot issue of discussions within institutions, civil society and the media. While universal ban and enforcement of existing prohibition are causes for WMs in Italy, legalisation of GS is not (yet). It seems that feminists who disagree with the call for abolition are more open to GS ‘in principle’ than ‘in practice’, as if they would not surrender to the acknowledgment that some limits to women’s freedom need to be established: abolitionists belonging to “difference feminists” set these limits in the female sexed identity and defend the centrality/power of the mother in humanity; feminists who do not agree with the GS prohibition believe that women should be free to embrace new opportunities of emancipation (also from their own female identity) by using creatively their reproductive capacity.

It is worth noticing that GS in Italy, different than the other two case studies in USA and Mexico, is prohibited and is not physically undergone within National borders; nevertheless, opposition is stronger and more active than in other two case studies where GS is at some level regulated. Therefore, we can say that Italian feminists are engaging in a battle that presently does not closely pertain to exploitation or commodification of women in Italy; it pertains to commodification of women in other countries of the world, and more broadly to the theoretical notion of ‘the woman’, whose reproductive ability is devalued as an exploitable function. However, it is important to notice that opposition to GS hinders the possibility that GS expands a form of reproductive work in Italy too, where economic crisis is rampant.

GS mobilization in Italy is characterized by consolidated relationships between activists in the civil society and politicians in the institutions and thus by engagement of politicians in GS opposition (mainly through law proposals and public statements). Whereas the position of the right-wing parties is clearly against GS and politicians in this area cooperate with pro-lifers and pro-family groups, on the other side the position of the left-wing parties, which in the last decade have strengthened their engagement in civil rights and gender equality, is not clear and homogeneous. The Catholic stream in the left-wing parties is against GS whereas politicians belonging to the tradition of the Italian Radical Party and Communist Party are paladins of same-sex marriage, homo-parenting and in some cases GS. This situation poses some identity problems to feminism, whose traditional political interlocutor has been the Left-wing parties.

Coalitions that transcend traditional ideological divisions and divergences on other social issues would render opposition stronger. In particular, feminists and conservative groups such as pro-lifers and pro-family could consider to start a singe-issue alliance on GS while maintaining their different views on abortion and homosexuality. Shared concerns about health and psychological risks for surrogates and children could be developed into a scientific-based argument for joint opposition to GS.⁷ By the same token, feminists need to consider the possibility of dialogue with political parties in the conservative area although they are traditionally perceived distant from feminist visions of women’s emancipation. This kind of openness could also offer the opportunity to modify pre-assumptions about ‘enemy’s’ values and visions.

In light of this diffused and structured opposition to GS, Italy might become a model of strict prohibition if law and policy proposals aimed at enforcing the Law 40 (e.g. through case by case administrative response and prosecution of GS undergone by Italian citizens abroad) are approved. On the other hand, it is unlikely that in the near future GS continues to be a ‘hot topic’ in the Italian political debate: indeed, Italian population will need to face heavy effects, in terms of economic crisis and reorganization of daily life and family, of anti COVID-19 polices (such as lockdown, social distancing, smart-working, distance-learning and schools closure). These are risk factors that might render Italian women target of international recruitment of surrogates, a possibility that should be taken into consideration in policy-making as well as in any reform or enforcement of Law 40.

FOLLOW UP

WoMoGeS is a comparative study, and Italy has been studied as the third case. The comparative analysis to be done in the final year of the project will enhance the quality of findings. Comments are encouraged. Please contact me privately at d.bandelli@lumsa.it For updates and further documentation please visit the blog www.womoges.wordpress.com

Publications related to the Italian case

• Bandelli, D. & Corradi, C. (2019) Abolishing or regulating surrogacy. The meanings of freedom according to Italian feminism. Salute e Società, vol. 18, n. 1, pp. 9-25. DOI: 10.3280/SES2019-001002
• Bandelli, D. (2019) Feminism and gestational surrogacy. Theoretical reconsiderations in the name of the child and the woman. Italian Sociological Review, vol. 9, n. 3, pp. 345-361. ISSN 2239-8589. DOI: 10.13136/isr.v9i3.297

Other publications:

• Bandelli, D. (2019) Gestational surrogacy in Mexico. The social vision of progress and autonomy underlying the regulatory policy making and discourse. Rivista Trimestrale di Scienza dell’Amministrazione (online) n. 4, pp. 1-30. ISSN 1972-4942. DOI: 10.32049/RTSA.2019.4.05
• Bandelli, D. (2019) La società del narcisismo. Un’applicazione della teoria di Christopher Lasch alla Gestazione per Altri. La Critica Sociologica, vol. 53, n. 210, pp. 83-100. ISSN 0011-1546 DOI: 10.19272/201901202006

1https://www.ansa.it/canale_saluteebenessere/notizie/sanita/2019/06/19/maternita-surrogata-associazioni-presentano-proposta-legge_7590be0c-c2e1-491e-b142-cf0d35ef1b84.html

2 De Marco, G. (2011). La bioetica in redazione. Siena: Cantagalli, p. 111

3Vitale, A.R. (2019). “La maternità surrogata nella sentenza delle Sezioni Unite Civili n. 12193/2019“ https://www.centrostudilivatino.it/la-maternita-surrogata-nella-sentenza-delle-sezioni-unite-civili-n-12193-2019/

4 Cavarero, A. (1999). Il pensiero femminista. Un approccio teoretico. In F. Restaino & A. Cavarero, Le filosofie femministe. (pp. 111–166). Paravia scriptorium; Greer, G. (1999). The whole woman. London: Doubleday.

5https://abbattoimuri.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/dici-terf-femministe-radicali-trans-escludenti-e-trovi-le-femministe-della-differenza/

6 Vitale, A. R. (2017). Unified opposition to surrogacy. Comparing feminist and Catholic views. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 623–629.

7Literature shows that GS (insofar it implies IVF, the implant of embryos with different DNA than one of the carrier, pharmacological treatments for eggs ‘donors’ and carriers, in majority of cases multi-embryo implantation and selective reductions, cesarean birth, and sudden interruption of bodily and organic exchange between the carrier and the fetus) is pregnancy at higher risks (for both the surrogate and the fetus) of several complications: gestational diabetes, fetal growth restriction, pre-eclampsia, premature birth, intracranial pressure, malformations, delay in bones growth, infertility and cancer. Surrogates after birth are at risk of postpartum depression and trauma for being detached from the baby (although not genetically bonded). Also, 2-5% of eggs providers contract the hyper-stimulation syndrome, which includes abdominal inflammation, kidney failure, infertility, thrombosis, and cardiac instability. See: Allen, A. A. (2018). Surrogacy and limitations to freedom of contract: Toward being more fully human. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy; Cooper, M. & Waldby, C. (2014). Clinical labor: Tissue donors and research subjects in the global bioeconomy. Durham and London: Duke University Press; Corradi, L. (2017). Nel ventre di un’altra. Bologna: Castelvecchi; Gordon, M. (2018). Do IVF and other infertility tech lead to health risks for the baby? Maybe, NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/19/648923906/do-ivf-and-other-infertility-tech-lead-to-health-risks-for-the-baby-maybe; Nicolais, G. (2018). Il bambino capovolto. Roma: San Paolo; Weinrauch, L.A., Gerhard-Herman, M.D., and Mendelson, M.M. (2018), “Epigenetics: Is the mode of conception a marker for future cardiovascular risk?”. Journal of the American College of Cardiology; Mendiri, M. A. A. (2018). “Gestación subrogada desde una perspectiva biomédica: lo que el debate científico puede añadir a la discusión ética”. Revista Internacional de Eticas Aplicadas.