A summer course on surrogacy offered at a public university in Spain has caused a stir in political and civic organizations from the Right to the Left. The only entity not reacting to the course on a practice that is illegal in Spain is the Socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
The course is a 20-hour continuing education class offered in July by the Avila campus of Spain’s National Distance Education University (UNED), a public university. According to the course description, in addition to offering an overview of the current legislation around the world on the “controversial assisted reproduction technique of surrogacy,” the course clearly advocates a pro-surrogacy position by pointing out that some countries have “a legally secure model and have been practicing [surrogacy] for decades.”
The course proposes to teach students how to create a legal foundation for the practice, which is currently illegal in Spain and almost every country in the EU.
“In this legislative and social context, what is certain is that there is a problem to be solved, such as the discriminatory treatment suffered by those individuals with infertility and/or structural sterility problems who do not have in their respective States a surrogacy regulation that could eliminate such inequality,” the course description reads. “This clashes with the purpose of assisted reproduction laws and, therefore, with the possibility that people can build their own families. We are committed to family diversity. Therefore, solutions must be proposed.”
El Debate reports that over 100 political and civic groups have denounced the course publicly and called on the government to cancel it, including the local chapter of the far-left party Unidas Podemos. So far, though, the Spanish government has not responded.
Also according to El Debate, with some 70 students signed up to take the class either in person or online, the class has the largest number of enrollees among the summer offerings at the campus.
