German conservative resigns after pressure over surrogate baby

Jens Spahn, Executive Federal Minister for Health, gives a press conference on the development in the Corona pandemic at the Federal Press Conference in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Dec. 3, 2021. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

BERLIN - Jens Spahn, a senior member of Germany’s ruling conservatives, resigned on Saturday after having a baby born to a surrogate mother in the United States, a move at odds with his own party’s opposition to surrogacy, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Spahn, 46, the parliamentary leader of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrat party and its sister Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), drew heavy criticism after news emerged that he had become a parent with his husband through a surrogate mother.

Surrogacy is prohibited in Germany, although it is not illegal to bring up a child born of a surrogate mother outside Germany.

“Over the past few days, I have come to realize that my personal happiness — starting a family with my husband and becoming a father — is incompatible with my political office," Spahn wrote in the resignation letter.

The CDU voted to uphold the ban on surrogacy inside Germany at its party conference in February, and the news about Spahn’s move to use a surrogate in the U.S. prompted numerous calls from within the party for Spahn to step down.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke and James Mackenzie; Writing by Tom Sims; Editing by Alison Williams, Aidan Lewis)