Ricerc@Sapienza

STUDY QUESTION: How do gay father families experience surrogacy in terms of their relationships with surrogates and egg donors, fathers' disclosure decisions and children's views on their surrogacy origins?

SUMMARY ANSWER: More families had a relationship with the surrogate than the egg donor, and almost all had started to disclose to their children, the majority of whom expressed limited interest in their surrogacy conception.

Introduction The present study examined father-–child relationships, parenting quality, and child psychological adjustment in 35 gay single father surrogacy families, 30 heterosexual single father surrogacy families, 45 gay two-father surrogacy families, and 45 heterosexual two-parent IVF families, when children were aged 3–10 years. Methods In each family, fathers were administered standardized questionnaires and interviews, and participated in three videorecorded observational tasks with their child. Teachers and a child psychiatrist further rated child adjustment.

A legal approach to surrogacy raises a number of complex and delicate issues that directly affect
self-determination and relations concerning the very origin of human life. Besides, it implies
different approaches to human dignity, as it is revealed by the comparison of different regulations
and judicial decisions on the matter. On this ground, the Author discusses the most common
approaches to surrogacy, trying to construe an alternative paradigm suitable to overcome

Forty Italian gay father families formed by surrogacy were compared with 40 Italian lesbian mother families formed by donor insemination, all with a child aged 3 to 9 years. Standardized interview, observational, and questionnaire measures of parenting quality, parent– child relationships, stigmatization, and children’s adjustment were administered to parents, children, teachers, and a child psychiatrist. The only differences across family types indicated higher levels of stigmatization as reported by gay fathers.

The essay comments on the decision of the United Sections of the Italian Cassation Court on the matter of surrogacy, trying to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this decision and offering a more general interpretation of this phenomenon in the Italian legal system. It is the occasion for a reflection both on the concept of interactional public order and on the surrogacy. The essay contests the idea that the best interest of the minor can be - as the Cassation says - a counter-limit of the international public order, since the last and the first must interpenetrate and not juxtapose.