Reuters —
Jens Spahn, a senior member of Germany’s ruling Conservative Party, resigned on Saturday after a baby was delivered to him by a surrogate mother in the United States, a move at odds with his party’s opposition to surrogacy, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Spahn, 46, the parliamentary leader of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Party and its sister group the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), drew intense criticism after news emerged that she had become a husband and a parent through a surrogate mother.
Although surrogacy is prohibited in Germany, it is not illegal for a child born to a surrogate mother to be raised outside Germany.
“Over the past few days, I have realized that my personal happiness in starting a family with my husband and becoming a father is incompatible with my political positions,” Spahn said in his resignation letter.
The CDU voted at its party conference in February to support a ban on surrogacy in Germany, but reports of Spahn’s move to use surrogate mothers in the United States prompted many calls from within the party for Spahn to resign.
