German politician faces calls to resign over child born with US surrogate

German centre-right politician Jens Spahn has been accused of double standards, after he revealed he and his husband had become parents using a surrogate mother in the US.

Surrogacy is banned in Germany – a policy firmly backed by his Christian Democrat party, and several years ago by Spahn himself.

Although there is no German ban on bringing up a child born to a surrogate mother abroad, Spahn, 46, has been criticised by politicians from several parties, including his own.

“Politicians who set standards for others must be measured by them too,” said Marion Rosin, a Christian Democrat in Thuringia and part of the Women’s Union. “If that credibility is gone, resignation is a matter of consequence.”

Spahn, the parliamentary group leader of the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union, announced on Wednesday that he and his husband Daniel Funke had become parents.

“Georg is our greatest joy. This feeling is almost impossible to put into words,” he told tabloid newspaper Bild. Then his husband posted a picture on Instagram of the couple with Spahn pushing a pram along with the words “We Are Family”.

Under the 1990 Embryo Protection Act, surrogacy in Germany is punishable with three years imprisonment or a fine, so Spahn and his partner looked to the US for a surrogate mother.

For many German couples, single-sex or heterosexual, surrogacy abroad has become an important option.

Other EU countries including France, Spain and Italy also ban surrogacy, which involves a woman carrying a baby and giving birth on behalf of parents unable to have children themselves.

France’s top court, the Court of Cassation, ruled this month that babies born to a surrogate mother abroad should be legally recognised as their intended parents’ children.

Meanwhile, Italy made it illegal in 2024 for Italians to have a baby abroad through surrogacy, in a policy driven by Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government.