Acronyms will eventually be a casualty

[PatatiPatatras]

Reading up on https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66860266.

I couldn't help but think, you mean homosexuality is being targeted. It feels like everything else is hanging on to homosexuality because ???

It started out as cool to look out for each other and for everyone to be lumped together. Now it feels like you can't state when something specifically targets homosexuals.

The article does use the term same sex but it just feels tagged on. Something about this feels demeaning.

Well it's not clear that one of the fathers would have those rights if the intention is to ban people from using surrogates abroad.

The baby isn’t punished. As above, the parents can go through the adoption process but don’t seem to think it’s a priority. They didn’t prioritise the child when they removed it from its mother and they don’t want to now because it’s too expensive, time consuming and humiliating. Utterly selfish.

Of course the baby is punished.

That's what makes this so difficult. There are very few ways of sanctioning the parents which don't have an extremely negative effect on the child, who is innocent.

So you think the worst thing done to the baby is the bureaucracy once it’s returned to the country? Italians should be free to inflict the trauma of separation first, and then it’s important to make sure the bureaucracy doesn’t cause any problems when they return?

The current theoretical child has pathways to Italian citizenship if the parents are willing to put aside their selfishness and get on with it. Future theoretical children will not experience the trauma of bureaucracy because the laws will stop the trauma of their trafficking before they get to that part.

It should also be said that it’s important that any parent - male, female, gay or straight - is aware of the citizenship laws of the country you’re living in before having a baby (or trafficking a baby). It’s vital to know where you stand and what status your baby will have to avoid complications. This is common sense advice to any immigrant. So if any of these parents affected aren’t Italian citizens then they’ve made a grave error. This happens with people who unexpectedly give birth in other countries, didn’t realise they weren’t residents or citizens etc.

Yes but literally none of those things are the baby's fault.

It's taking the position that in order to punish parents for using a woman's body and separating a child from its birth mother, it's a good idea to inflict more misery on that child. And no, it isn't just bureaucracy. What if the government in power when the child turns 18 is even more right wing and even more determined to punish people who use surrogates than this one, and refuses to grant citizenship?

The baby could potentially not be allowed to live in the country he or she has grown up in, or in the same country as the only parents he or she has ever known.

I don’t understand what you’re arguing. If the parents are Italian citizens then there’s nothing to stop them from making sure the baby they’ve bought also becomes an Italian citizen by following the pathway that they would have known they had to follow when they started the process. You seem to be saying that they shouldn’t have to do that and a baby born to a foreign mother in a foreign country should be automatically made an Italian citizen and there shouldn’t be any process to make sure this is a legitimate adoption?

It sounds ideal, but how do you ensure that this is not trafficking for nefarious means and the adopting parents aren’t getting themselves a baby/child through dodgy practices for dodgy reasons? Like the paedophile in Australia in the Baby Gammie case?

The rules on obtaining citizenship change frequently.

The only way to guarantee having Italian citizenship at some point in your life is to already have it now.

And your adoption point is moot since only heterosexual couples are allowed to adopt in Italy.

Brothers of Italy MP Ms Varchi points out that "non-biological parents can ask our courts to adopt the children - in special circumstances, this will be recognised".

However this process, called "step-child adoption", is expensive and can take years.

It's humiliating to adopt your own child," Mauro says.

They can do it. They just don’t want to.

The rules on obtaining citizenship change frequently.

The only way to guarantee having Italian citizenship at some point in your life is to already have it now.

But they didn’t factor that in before they went ahead? Why not?

I would agree that there should be a period of amnesty if laws were changed mid process but people who selfishly ignore laws can’t expect them to be changed because it’s sad for the baby. Their lack of consideration of this is just indicative of the selfish nature of those who pursue a baby via surrogacy.

Consider this scenario: an Italian couple - of any make up - return from overseas with a baby and say it’s theirs. How does anyone determine that to be the truth? How is it confirmed it’s one of theirs biologically? How is it determined they didn’t just walk into a hospital or a Ukrainian orphanage - currently full of surrogate babies abandoned - and just take a baby? Or should they just be able to register the baby as an Italian citizen?

I don't disagree with what you're saying, I'm saying that these new rules intended to punish the parents for their decision also amount to punishing the child for the circumstances around their conception and birth, which I don't support.

And in any case, there will be ways around it. A gay couple would need to go to a country where one of them and the birth mother would be listed on the birth certificate as the parents, for example. After the child's birth they then enter into a custody agreement which states that the father has full custody of the child. The father then brings the child to Italy and says, "I had a relationship with [surrogate] in [country] and this is my child."

The Italian authorities can't do anything to stop that. But it could have unintended consequences. For example, if the father listed on the birth certificate dies, the child's next of kin is a woman they don't know who lives in another country. Or if the surrogate one day decides she wants her baby back, or even that she wants to live in Italy, she travels to Italy, obtains residency on the grounds that she is the parent of an Italian child living in Italy, and demands custody. These scenarios do not benefit the child. They are destabilising and create legal uncertainty.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, I'm saying that these new rules intended to punish the parents for their decision also amount to punishing the child for the circumstances around their conception and birth, which I don't support.

But that isn’t true. Current babies have to follow the rules that already existed. If intended parents ignore these issues for future arrangements it is them that is punishing the child, not the state, by being willing to risk their child being stateless to get what they want. The simplest solution is to not proceed with surrogacy to avoid this situation.

And in any case, there will be ways around it. A gay couple would need to go to a country where one of them and the birth mother would be listed on the birth certificate as the parents, for example. After the child's birth they then enter into a custody agreement which states that the father has full custody of the child. The father then brings the child to Italy and says, "I had a relationship with [surrogate] in [country] and this is my child."

The Italian authorities can't do anything to stop that. But it could have unintended consequences. For example, if the father listed on the birth certificate dies, the child's next of kin is a woman they don't know who lives in another country. Or if the surrogate one day decides she wants her baby back, or even that she wants to live in Italy, she travels to Italy, obtains residency on the grounds that she is the parent of an Italian child living in Italy, and demands custody. These scenarios do not benefit the child. They are destabilising and create legal uncertainty.

Again, I am not sure what you’re arguing. This argument here is that the only way to prevent this is to not proceed with surrogacy! Which is what should happen! People should consider these potential outcomes before proceeding and not proceed.

But you seem to be saying that if Italians do proceed, against better advice and warnings of such outcomes, manage to circumvent the laws designed to prevent such negative outcomes then the best thing to do is just…let them off?

I suspect that, if the USA is so keen on promoting the international baby trafficking trade, the answer is that they need to take responsibility for the consequences of that when other states object.

Maybe the USA will need to give the men who bought the baby leave to remain so they can bring up their US citizen child in the USA.

One of the big issues here is that the USA allows the international baby trade to operate within its territory.

And then other countries are just supposed to accept their citizens popping over to the US to buy a baby and importing it and demanding citizenship.

The USA doesn’t get to decide that selling babies to order (and women’s bodies to gestate them in) is ok and the whole rest of the world must accept it.

Maybe the couple in this case should have considered emigrating to the USA if they really wanted to buy a baby. There may be many issues around homophobia in Italy, but it’s not homophobic to say that no one should be trafficking infants.

The USA doesn't need to do anything. If the USA were willing to accept any moral responsibility in relation to this issue commercial surrogacy would be illegal there too.

I really don't know how to be clearer about what I am arguing here.

The point is that even if the adults concerned do everything you think they shouldn't have done and everything the government tried to stop them from doing, the baby is still innocent and doesn't deserve to be punished for the circumstances surrounding their birth.

It does need to take responsibility for the infant US citizens it produces - even where they’re sold on the international baby market.

Maybe it should offer the Italian baby buyers citizenship so they can raise their purchase in the USA.

The child is not stateless.

It really couldn't matter less what you think the USA should or shouldn't do.

Presumably you also think the USA should ban commercial surrogacy altogether.

If they're not interested in your views on that then I assume they are also not interested on your views about whether they should be offering citizenship or residency to the foreign parents of babies born via surrogacy in the USA.

Nobody is claiming that the child is born stateless. The issue is that the child does not share the same nationality as either of its parents (or at least, the people who are raising the child and who the child considers to be its parents), which puts the child at a disadvantage through no fault of its own. It creates a risk that one day, when the child turns 18, they will not be allowed to live in the same country as their parents.

I think the Italian government is entitled to decide that the USA doesn’t get to decide on its laws though. Or force de facto acceptance of its human trafficking industry.

Yes. There’s a child involved. But it’s an American child. And two selfish Italian citizens who decided they could just force the Italian state to accept their actions.

The USA doesn't want to decide on Italy's laws.

The USA doesn't give a shiny shit.

Meanwhile the child exists and is being disadvantaged by Italy's desire to punish their parents.

It’s an American citizen though.

And Italy doesn’t have to give citizenship to American infants because the USA allows them to be put on sale.

Insisting that they must is not punishing the child. It’s treating the child as an American citizen, which it is.

Maybe Italy should prosecute the men for international child trafficking?

So what?

The USA has absolutely zero problem deporting the non US citizen family members of US citizens, even when the citizen is a dependent child of the non citizen.

The idea that they would take a different approach to people who came to the USA for surrogacy just because you think that would be the right thing to do is laughable.

So then what? They go to jail and the child is taken into care?

But you want Italy to take responsibility for the child on the basis of ‘won’t anyone think of the children?’

It IS thinking of the children to not turn a blind eye to international infant trafficking under the euphemism of surrogacy. All the children who should not be conceived gestated and gestated to order.