German citizens do not approve of surrogacy despite a recent campaign to legalize it, according to a new poll.
Citizens in Germany do not view the inability to have children as a justification for surrogacy, according to a recent representative survey conducted by INSA-Consulere on behalf of the Evangelical News Agency IDEA. INSA-Consulere interviewed 2,005 adult German citizens via an online panel from July 17 to 20.
Asked whether the desire to have a child justifies surrogacy, 41 percent of respondents answered “no.” Thirty-six percent said “yes.” Nineteen percent were undecided (“Don’t know”), and five percent did not provide an answer.
Opposition to surrogacy is particularly pronounced among Christians – albeit with differences between denominational groups.
Among members of the Free churches, comparable with Evangelical churches in the U.S., 62 percent state that the desire to have a child does not justify surrogacy. In comparison, only 31 percent said the opposite. Forty-four percent of Catholic respondents opposed surrogacy and 35 percent supported it. Among the mainline Protestant churches, 41 percent opposed surrogacy and 38 percent condoned the practice. The survey did not differentiate between practicing and non-practicing Christians.
With regard to political leanings, the strongest opposition to surrogacy was found among supporters of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (48 percent) and the Christian Democrats (46 percent), while support for surrogacy was strongest among the left-wing Greens. However, even among supporters of the Green Party, “yes” and “no” votes were split equally at around 41 percent each.
The survey shows that surrogacy remains a contentious issue that divides Germans across party lines. The recent scandal of CDU (Christian Democrats) politician Jens Spahn (photo above), who had acquired a baby boy via surrogacy with his homosexual “husband,” sparked renewed debate about the topic.
Spahn had bought the child from a U.S. surrogate to circumvent the prohibition in Germany and despite having previously opposed legalizing surrogacy. Due to the massive backlash, including from within his own party, he resigned from his position as the leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. However, he remains a member of the German Parliament and of the CDU.
Proponents of surrogacy have used this opportunity to launch a media campaign in favor of legalizing surrogacy in Germany. Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, who was nominated to become a judge on the country’s constitutional court last year but was ultimately rejected due to her extreme leftist views, is among the strongest proponents of legalizing surrogacy.
Brosius-Gersdorf argued that the German constitution would grant women the “right” to become a surrogate if she so wishes.
“Freedom and the individual – that is at the core. Their autonomy, their self-determined actions. In other words, human dignity – which is now frequently cited as an argument against the legalization of surrogacy – is not the limit; it is the very basis for self-determination,” the jurist said.
“And if a woman decides – in a self-determined, autonomous, voluntary, and well-informed manner – that she wants to serve as a surrogate mother, then in my opinion the state must not prohibit that,” she concluded.
Politicians from the AfD and CDU sharply criticized Brosius-Gersdorf for her statements, expressing gratitude that she was not elected to the constitutional court.
“It’s a good thing that the AfD blocked this person from becoming a constitutional court justice,” Beatrix von Storch, deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group, wrote on X.