The case of Union parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn has reignited the debate on surrogacy. Now, constitutional lawyer Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf has caused outrage – especially in conservative and bourgeois circles – with an interview in which she advocates for legalization.
There are cross-party differentiated statements on ‘rent-a-womb’, writes former CDU party leader and chancellor candidate Armin Laschet on X. ‘I haven’t read anything cruder than this answer from Ms. Brosius-Gersdorf.’ Laschet added a quote from the jurist to his post, in which she criticized the Union’s stance in the surrogacy debate. It reads: ‘Union’s position on surrogacy is shaped by an image of humanity that does not correspond to the Basic Law.’ She said that with the ban on surrogacy and egg donation, they are denying women their right to self-determination.
In the interview with ‘Zeit’, Brosius-Gersdorf described the current ban on surrogacy in Germany as ‘paternalistic’. ‘You cannot protect women, and therefore also surrogate mothers, against their declared will from themselves.’ Brosius-Gersdorf said the state must create regulations that ensure women are informed about the risks of surrogacy. ‘But if they then still voluntarily decide in favor of it, the legislator cannot forbid them.’ This also applies in other areas: there is a right to self-determined dying, a right to smoke and drink alcohol, to high-risk sports. ‘Therefore, I see good reasons to legalize surrogacy in Germany as well,’ said the jurist.
FDP politician Linda Teuteberg commented briefly on this passage on X: ‘Not everything that limps is a comparison,’ she wrote about the quote.
Last year, the planned election of Brosius-Gersdorf as a constitutional judge also failed due to resistance from the Union. CDU and CSU had previously expressed considerable reservations. Brosius-Gersdorf had been attacked on social media, among other things, for her positions on abortion law. After weeks of dispute in the coalition, the election was canceled. Brosius-Gersdorf finally withdrew her candidacy. Laschet now referred to this with the sentence: ‘A blessing that she does not sit on the highest German court, which guards the value system of the constitution.’
However, other voices are also being raised in the debate. The chairman of the German Ethics Council, Helmut Frister, is calling for an open societal debate on surrogacy. ‘If you don’t have the debates, the problem will remain latent forever,’ said the legal scholar on Deutschlandfunk. ‘One should have this debate, and then one must consider which goods are opposed to each other.’
Green parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann is calling for a new examination of the issue.
Source: www.spiegel.de
AfD and Fantasies of Violence: A Commentary on July 20