Spain bans its embassies from registering babies born through surrogacy

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The Spanish government is banning its embassies and consulates from registering children born through surrogates in foreign countries.

Regulations set to go into effect on Thursday cancel all pending registration processes and forbid diplomats from accepting certificates issued by foreign countries in which Spanish citizens are recognized as the parents of a child born through surrogacy.

Several EU countries prohibit surrogacy, but citizens routinely skirt the ban by hiring surrogates in foreign countries and registering the children abroad. Opposition to that loophole has become a unifying issue among politicians — both from the far right and the far left — who are usually diametrically opposed. 

In Italy, right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has cracked down on the practice as part of a broader campaign targeting the LGBTQ+ community. Surrogacy had become an increasingly popular option for the country's same-sex couples, who are banned from adopting children, but in 2023 Meloni ordered city councils to only register biological parents on birth certificates. Last year her government made traveling abroad to have a...