A prominent member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s centre-right party came under fire on Friday for having a child through a surrogate pregnancy in the United States, despite the practice being illegal in Germany.<\/p>\n
Jens Spahn, the chairman of the CDU\u2019s faction in the German parliament, and his husband recently became parents to a son born to a surrogate mother in the United States, according to German media reports.<\/p>\n
The CDU has however strictly opposed making surrogate pregnancies legal in Germany and some in the party have criticised Spahn\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday said he saw \u201cno need to change\u201d Germany\u2019s ban on surrogacy or his party\u2019s clear opposition to it.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he still supported Spahn, Merz would only say that the matter would be \u201cdiscussed at the next meeting of the CDU\u2019s national executive committee\u201d.<\/p>\n
Others in Merz\u2019s party have been forthright in their condemnation.<\/p>\n
\u201cJens Spahn is no longer tenable as chairman of the parliamentary group and must resign,\u201d Daniel Peters, the leader of the CDU in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, told the Bild newspaper on Friday.<\/p>\n
Peters, who sits on the CDU\u2019s national executive committee, said it was \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d for Spahn to vote one way as a CDU lawmaker and then \u201cact quite differently as a private individual\u201d.<\/p>\n
The head of the CDU\u2019s group for older members, Hubert Hueppe, told Der Spiegel magazine that he was \u201cpersonally shocked\u201d by Spahn\u2019s decision in spite of the CDU\u2019s \u201cclear stance\u201d on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I can understand that everyone desires a child, including homosexual couples,\u201d Hueppe said, but added that the debate is over \u201cwhether women are being instrumentalised\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to Bild, the couple\u2019s surrogate was around four months pregnant when the CDU last voted to maintain the ban on surrogacy in February.<\/p>\n
Sources close to Spahn told Focus magazine that US regulations aimed at protecting women were a decisive factor in the couple\u2019s decision to go there for a surrogate mother.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s own commissioner for queer issues, Sophie Koch from the centre-left SPD, also reacted to the row.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany queer people want children and should be able to fulfil this wish,\u201d she told the Rheinische Post, but added: \u201cI don\u2019t think commercial surrogacy is the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spahn, 46, previously served as Germany\u2019s health minister during the Covid-19 pandemic\u00a0under former chancellor Angela Merkel.<\/p>\n
Under Merz, he has become a prominent right-wing voice in the party, especially on immigration issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prominent member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s centre-right party came under fire on Friday for having a child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,355,26489],"class_list":["post-56682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-germany","tag-international","tag-mna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}