One day after the PP opened the melon of a possible regulation of “altruistic” surrogates in Spain, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has tried to cool down a debate that has stirred up the Church and the hardest sectors of the right. From Lisbon, on an official trip, the head of the conservatives defended this Thursday that although he is in favor of “ordering” this practice, “this is not the time”, despite the social uproar caused by the news that the television presenter Ana Obregón, 68, has become a surrogate mother in the US. The turn of the PP in favor of regulation has agitated the party and the Episcopal Conference, openly opposed to these practices, putting pressure on the popular leader, who Now lower your ambitions.

On Wednesday, in the heat of the news about the maternity of Ana Obregón, sources from the leadership of the PP at the highest level conveyed their desire to open a “calm and serious” debate to legislate surrogacy, illegal in Spain, as long as “There is no financial compensation under any circumstances”. This position represented a shift in the PP, which until now had remained in a calculated ambiguity due to the internal division in the last party congress with ideological debate, that of 2017. The change in the position of the popular, which was not agreed internally beyond the hard core, according to sources consulted by EL PAÍS, it has stirred the waters on the right and in the social sectors that are traditionally close to it, such as the Catholic Church. At the same time, it focuses on the PP with a position that is controversial instead of on the problems of the Government, where the popular want to hit to try to wear it down. Consequently, this Thursday, Feijóo made a move again: after the step forward, he took a step back.

The leader of the PP continues to defend that the debate must be opened and ordered, but now he does not believe that it is a priority. “In Spain, surrogacy is illegal, but there are Spaniards who go to other countries, bring the babies and register them as adopted children or as direct children. This debate must be given. There is no pronouncement from the PP, but to say that there is a debate that we must order, ”he said from Lisbon. “Not now, which is not the time, but in the face of a controversial social fact, what the parties should do is debate. What cannot happen is that something that is illegal in Spain is admitted in some countries and there are Spanish citizens who are registering these babies as direct or adopted children. It is evident that the main problem we have in Spain is not to close this matter, the main problem is to stop the bleeding of releases and reduction of sentences for rapists and sexual abusers. It is urgent and a priority ”, he settled.

In the PP, where the turn of the leadership has caused confusion, they interpret that Feijóo’s retreat is related to the commotion that the new position has caused. “We were going to get ourselves into trouble, there is a sector in the party, the most religious, that is against it; and furthermore, the PP is not interested in current affairs revolving around itself, but that it is necessary to focus on the problems of the Government. This distracts us”, analyzes a leader, who perceives in the leader an attempt to play “ambiguity” with this issue.

The PP was already divided in the 2017 congress between supporters and detractors of surrogates and now the barons are also revealing their differences. Some, like the Andalusian, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, go even further than Feijóo, while other territorial leaders such as the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, are against surrogates.

The president of Andalusia, who in 2017 already positioned himself among those in favor of regulating this practice, is clearly committed to promoting a law. “I think that the General State Administration has to respond in the form of a norm to a phenomenon that is real, that exists, and that can even generate inequality among the Spanish themselves, because there will be some who have resources and can opt for this path. , and others who will not have resources and will not be able to do it ”, reflected Moreno Bonilla this Thursday. On the other hand, the mayor of the capital, who belongs to the most religious sector of the PP, spoke out against rental bellies, although he agrees to discuss cases in which there is no economic consideration.

the bishops

It is, in any case, for the PP a delicate debate, which provokes a resounding rejection in the religious conservative electorate, as the Spanish bishops came to remember yesterday. “Being a mother is not a right, but a gift”, defended the general secretary of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, César García Magán, reports Julio Nunez. In the press conference after the meeting of the permanent commission of the bishops, the also spokesman stressed that “the surrogate mother is not an incubator” and recalled that, despite the fact that “she understands the situation of women who, unfortunately, for different circumstances have not been able to have a child”, there is a clash of rights, between “the mother who asks and the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child”.

On the other hand, the General Council of Official Colleges of Physicians (CGCOM) generally rejects this type of pregnancy, although it opens the door for it to be admitted in “very exceptional cases related to the health of the mother, without any financial consideration.” and with the control of the competent commission of the Ministry of Health”, as explained this Thursday by Juan José Sendín, member of the Central Ethics Commission of the Council

The political and social debate that has triggered the case of Ana Obregón continues in maximum tension and does not only cross the PP. In the PSOE, whose leadership is directly opposed to surrogates, a leader from the Balearic Islands, Oriol Lafau, resigned yesterday, who will not run on the electoral lists for May 28 after learning that he had resorted to a surrogate to be a father . Only Ciudadanos, the party that has historically championed this cause, seems to be comfortable. The formation has found a gap to catch air and yesterday re-registered its bill to regulate this practice, which was already rejected by Congress in 2019 for the last time, with the confidence that it can be debated again in Parliament on next April.