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A man takes a picture of a destroyed Russian tank in Nalyvaikivka, near Kyiv.
👋 Grüezi!*
Welcome to Monday, where Russia warns Finland and Sweden that joining NATO would be a “grave mistake,” locked-down Shanghai announces it aims for June 1 reopening, and South Asia’s heat wave becomes untenable. Meanwhile, Peter Huth in German daily Die Welt explains why the Doomsday Clock isn’t ticking quite the same for millennials today as it was for baby boomers.
[*Swiss German]
💡 SPOTLIGHT
On surrogacy, and the meaning of “women's dignity”
Italy’s right-wing politicians are trying to ban surrogacy, as the Pope pushes parents to have children and feminists are divided on the issue. On such a complicated issue, hard thinking and nuance have been in short supply.
After almost two decades away from Italy, I ended up moving back just after I found out I was pregnant in 2018.
We lived in a stone house among olive trees in the Umbrian countryside, just off a beautiful Medieval borgo called Montecastello di Vibio.
Even if I had tried, I could not have picked a better place for my pregnancy to be celebrated — and monitored publicly. With its aging dwellers slowly fading and younger families moving to the big cities, Montecastello was a perfect illustration of Italy’s falling fertility rates.
That a pregnancy was taking place in the town of 1,000 inhabitants was seen as a sort of miracle to be rejoiced — one that got the otherwise taciturn Umbrians to open up and show their kindness. The baker would hand me free squares of focaccia, while the butcher asked about my upcoming scans. Others worried if they saw me walking around town when it was too windy, and all came to congratulate me when Lorenzo was born.
For years, Italy’s falling fertility rates have been making the news. Conservative politicians tried to promote a ”Fertility Day” in 2016, with cringe-worthy, sexist promotional images that showed a woman stress-smiling because her clock was ticking. “Beauty has no age. But fertility does,” read one.
Pope Francis also made headlines more recently when he criticized couples who decide to have pets over children. “This denial of fatherhood or motherhood diminishes us, it takes away our humanity,” he said.
In this context of demographic challenges and the historical weight of the Catholic Church, the debate over surrogacy in Italy was bound to be complicated. Now, Italy’s conservative political parties are trying to pass legislation that would completely ban surrogacy, even if practiced abroad.
Currently, surrogacy is illegal in Italy: anyone who creates, organizes or advertises surrogacy commits an offense of criminal relevance that can be punished with up to two years in jail and fines of up to one million euros. But since surrogacy is allowed in other countries, it has been up to Italian courts to rule on the recognition of foreign birth certificates for children born abroad via a surrogate — and so far it has not been considered a crime.
With the current proposed legislation, things would change. The argument being used is that surrogacy has become a business that endangers women’s lives.
“It is a practice that turns life into a commodity and demeans the dignity of women,” said far-right leader Giorgia Meloni.
Well, for starters, this is Meloni's idea of women’s dignity: On March 8, she complained that the Minister for Equal Opportunities asked for the removal of a campaign against abortion that showed a fetus and said: “Power to women? Let’s give birth to them!”
Meloni asked: “What is there to censor in this message in favor of life, natality, children and in favor of supporting their mothers?”
I have a question for her: Who can you reconcile a ban on abortion with a ban on surrogacy?
LGBTQ+ rights groups consider the proposed Italian legislation as an attack against them. Veiled behind a discourse that talks about the rights of women, right-wing politicians are trying to make it impossible for them to have a family.
This is of course not surprising, considering that the Vatican has long influenced our internal politics.
Don’t get me wrong: I also worry about the exploitation of surrogacy when it is commercialized and it involves “cheap hubs,” as it was the case of Nepal, Kenya or Ukraine.
But there are a number of feminists who share the absolutist view of Pope Francis and Giorgia Meloni on a universal ban.
Writing in La Stampa, Lucetta Scaraffia argues that the separation experienced by the surrogate mother who carries the child in her womb is "a trauma, always:”
“In the case of children given up for adoption we recognize the trauma that abandonment by their natural mother represented for them, and we recognize that even for the mother forced to abandon him or her this is a very painful choice," Scaraffia argues. "But in the case of the surrogate mother, on the contrary, we do not want to see this, or rather we deny that in this case it is a planned trauma. A trauma produced specifically to make two selfish adults ‘happy’, who, not wanting to adopt an abandoned child, want one that has their genes, that bears their indelible trademark.”
Eugenia Tognotti, professor of medicine and human sciences, puts it in even starker terms: “Surrogacy, even if done for altruistic reasons and not for commercial ones, is nothing more than a form of modern slavery. The woman's body — in conditions of need — is transformed into a commodity, as is the child to be bought and sold, the child of a couple provided with means.”
These are heavy words and hard questions, no doubt.
Still, I believe that the conversation should lead us elsewhere, not in favor of an outright ban.
I wish adoption, as cited by everyone from the Pope to Scaraffia as a solution, could be such an easy process that people who can’t have their own children can look after another child. But that is not the case.
Shouldn’t we instead legislate better to make sure that if surrogacy takes place it takes place in a way that is dignified for the woman that carries the pregnancy?
“If I had written the law, instead of talking about gestation for others as a universal crime, I would have proposed to make it legal, but under certain conditions," said author Michela Marzano. "I would have proposed it to be free of charge, as happens when you donate an organ. But I would also have asked for medical and legal support for each woman.”
Marzano concludes: "There are those who donate a kidney or a piece of liver for free, there are those who constantly give time and love, there are those who give even their lives without asking anything in return.”
If we want to move forward, we need to have an honest conversation that involves people’s motives and a proper analysis of capitalism's role. Within that context, we can legislate in a way that makes more sense. After all, in countries like Canada, where compensation for surrogacy is not allowed, there are still women interested in carrying a baby for other couples.
It might not ever be a choice for me, or for Giorgia Meloni, but I see plenty of women's dignity there.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Ukrainian forces reach Russian border after reseizing Kharkiv: Ukraine continues to regain more territory in the northeast of the country, and by Monday morning had announced that a battalion had reached the Russian border. This comes after having taken back control of Kharkiv. Russia continues its assault on Donbass, and has renewed missile strikes of the port city of Odessa.
• More Ukrainians returning than leaving across border: The number of people entering Ukraine through its western border now exceeds those leaving the country, according to the State Border Guard Service. The shift, said one official is not only "out of optimism, but also because (people) are experiencing financial difficulties."
— Read all the latest at War in Ukraine, Day 82 —
• Two deadly shootings shake the U.S.: President Joe Biden is expected to travel tomorrow to Buffalo, in the state of New York, after an 18-year-old white supremacist is alleged to have killed ten people Saturday in a predominantly Black neighborhood. The following day, a gunman opened fire during lunchtime at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California, killing one and wounding five before being stopped by churchgoers.
• Mohamud back as Somalia president: Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected yesterday as president of Somalia, a position he already held in 2012-2017. He emerged victorious in a race against incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and is now expected to work towards tackling the country’s famine as well as a rise in Islamist attacks.
• North Korean army mobilized over COVID outbreak: Kim Jong-un has called for North Korean troops to bring medical supplies to the population amid a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country. All cities have been put on lockdown and South Korea has offered to help to provide assistance to its neighbor.
• Mali withdraws from G5 Sahel: The Malian government has announced it would withdraw from the G5 Sahel security group — a west African alliance also composed of Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad and Niger — and its anti-djihadist force. The decision comes as a protest to the other members’ rejection of Mali’s military junta as head of the regional group.
• Shanghai to return to normal life in June: Shanghai authorities have announced its progressive move out of a strict lockdown and aim to return to normalcy starting June 1. The restrictions imposed on the city since the end of March have disrupted the lives of its 26 million inhabitants, as well as the Chinese economy.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
The Buffalo News pays tribute to the ten victims of a mass shooting in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The suspect, an 18-year-old self-confessed white supremacist, reportedly travelled nearly 200 miles from his home to attack a predominantly Black neighborhood. The man surrendered himself to police and was charged with first-degree murder as local and state officials continue to investigate the gunman’s intent.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
51 °C
According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, temperatures rose to 51 °C (123,8 °F) over the weekend in Jacobabad, central Pakistan. This is the hottest temperature recorded anywhere on Earth so far in 2022, as South Asia is being hit by an extreme heat wave which could last for days.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
How millennials and boomers see Putin's nuclear threats differently
Baby boomers who grew up under the threat of nuclear armageddon warn against a nuclear escalation of the war in Ukraine. But the younger generations are not cowed by Putin's blackmail. And that’s a very good thing, writes Peter Huth in German daily Die Welt.
☢️😨 Olaf Scholz is 63 years old. Unlike his parents’ generation, he never saw his homeland reduced to rubble. But his entire generation grew up in the shadow of one overwhelming fear: that the world would be destroyed by nuclear warfare. This fear is so great that it makes all values fall by the wayside; it pushes politicians towards a “compromise” with the contemptible aggressor Putin, who wants his brutal invasion to be seen as a legitimate, unavoidable political action.
✊ Scholz has now changed his mind on the question of sending heavy weapons to Ukraine. It was the liberal Free Democratic Party’s commitment to freedom and the Green Party’s strong values that came through for him – and that means it was the younger generation, because those parties’ support is mainly among those under 35 years old. It is the generation that didn’t experience the greatest moments of fear of nuclear war that has prevailed in the question of how to respond to the invasion of Ukraine. They are unmoved by Putin’s attempt at blackmail.
⚠️ Of course we should try to avoid nuclear war. But we must also remember it is not in our power to stop it. If Putin finds himself cornered, he will use anything and everything as justification for a nuclear attack. That would cause infinite suffering, perhaps millions of deaths. But what would a victory for Putin look like? Would that not also mean the end of civilization? The neo-Soviet empire he would like to establish from Porto to Vladivostok would be barbaric.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📣 VERBATIM
“Nobody should trust Putin. We’ve been telling this to our partners for years.”
— Latvian Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Artis Pabriks told a Baltic security conference as more countries are reconsidering their role in state defense, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine at their door.
📸 PHOTO DU JOUR
A man takes a picture of a destroyed Russian tank in Nalyvaikivka, near Kyiv. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s invasion was at a “dead end” as Ukrainian officials report their troops have won the battle for the control of Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city. — Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA
✍️ Newsletter by Lisa Berdet, Lila Paulou, Anne-Sophie Goninet and Bertrand Hauger
Let us know what’s happening in your corner of the world!
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When the world gets closer, we help you see farther
- Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.
- Stories from the best international journalists.
- Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries
