{"id":1096912,"date":"2026-07-18T13:25:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T13:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1096912\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T13:25:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T13:25:37","slug":"german-conservative-parliamentary-leader-resigns-over-surrogacy-debate-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1096912\/","title":{"rendered":"German conservative parliamentary leader resigns over surrogacy debate \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe gap between my private decision to have a child through surrogacy and the understandable expectations placed on me as chair of our parliamentary group has become greater than I anticipated,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Although surrogacy itself is illegal in Germany, there is no penalty for bringing up a child born through a surrogate mother abroad. <\/p>\n

But Spahn, a former health minister, faced accusations of hypocrisy as Germany\u2019s Christian Democrats are firmly opposed to surrogacy, a position the party reaffirmed earlier this year. Spahn himself had also in the past expressed skepticism about legalising the practice. <\/p>\n

Several Christian Democrats called for Spahn to resign<\/a> this week. Merz, meanwhile, on Friday announced that the surrogacy controversy would be a topic of debate at the party\u2019s next executive committee meeting, and several German media outlets<\/a> reported Saturday morning that the chancellor had asked Spahn to quit. <\/p>\n

On X, Merz described<\/a> Spahn\u2019s decision to resign as \u201cright and inevitable.\u201d He added: \u201cCredibility is the most valuable asset in politics.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe gap between my private decision to have a child through surrogacy and the understandable expectations placed on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1096913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,2816,1945,1824,3941,4348,17860,1093],"class_list":["post-1096912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-politics","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-jens-spahn","tag-public-health"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116941208117053787","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1096913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}