by Silvia Niccolai*
Feminism, in different times, had challenged women’s subalternity: but what does being “subalterns” mean? An agenda set, though by reaction, by parties’ politics is the actual form of subalternity: there cannot be found a better way to prove women’s politics come after, and are literally below, the politics that really count (for female subalterns), namely that of political parties.
This subalternity is proved by those, as Lea Melandri did in these columns, accusing many women of all ages and from all countries – the latter always being opposed to surrogacy regardless of who is, has been, or will be in government seats – to provide sustenance to the right-wing argumentations. But we should be grateful to the renowned writer since rubbing it in, she shows it is really time to (go back to) discuss this topic: what would the space be for an autonomous women’s speaking if we had each time to concern about adjusting the statement according to governments? Where would the radicality lay, in exercises of fearful moderation as such, where the women discourse ends up as a poor copy of the dominant one?
For instance, invoking self-awareness – as Melandri does, afterwards conflating surrogacy with the existence of same-sex families whereas the 90% of heterosexual couples do resort to it, and the rest by “same-sex parents couples”, but usually male – is rather similar to populism. Which precisely, both right- and leftist, is based on confusion, smoke on the eyes and extreme generalizations. Who does benefit from this? Certainly, not the Constitution which, from time to time, is also invoked against the “fascist” government, along with the Italian Partigiani’s hymn “Bella Ciao”.
It is precisely in the name of the Constitution that jurisprudence, in a complex demanding as well as enlightening process has recognized that surrogacy would be contrary to the values of dignity and freedom of the human person (the highest international fora, inter alia a UN Council for the rights of children 2018 declaration, certainly define it as children market).
Thus, in those cases it would not be possible to record the birth certificates automatically and entirely. The integral and automatic transcription is functional to the needs of surrogacy traders, since it reduces “the administrative and procedural costs that prevent the most effective allocation of resources in the transnational reproduction market” (– to this extent, critically, the private law scholar Valentina Calderai), still not responding to the child’s right to child status. This is indeed naturally granted for the biological parent and is achieved through the other parent’s duty to resort to adoption in particular cases.
The latter solution is entirely consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights, according to the Strasbourg Court, and it is definitely not discriminatory on the ground of sexual orientation. It is crystal clear everywhere in our jurisprudence (but did anyone read it?), that the rejection of surrogacy has nothing to do with doubts about the homosexuals’ parental suitability, but rather with the constitutional ban not to take advantage of other human beings to satisfy one’s needs, whatever the kind.
Eventually, it has therefore been recognized that surrogacy, through which a woman agreees to carry a pregnancy to term on behalf of a third party, and medically assisted reproduction (MAR), in which the woman undergoing treatments intends to become the mother of the born child are different; and it has been recognized that only the former may outrage our constitutional public order, built upon freedom, equality, protection of vulnerable people (children, in this case, which adults, including surrogate women, have at their own disposal). Now it is time to make steps forwards, and in this regard, we need from feminism to be able to challenge political and opinion forces if they misrepresent these important jurisprudential rulings by turning them into hubs of policies defending the “traditional family” – as it seems to me to have occurred – and especially a feminism able of being proactive and to develop issues and urgencies in a self-sufficient and non-reactive manner. Namely, able to lead the political (both right- and leftist) forces rather than just chasing after them.
In particular, it seems to me that, being the surrogacy features clarified, we are now one step closer from assessing the evidence: all families are generated by a woman, and this is the “essential woman’s family function” the Constitution speaks about. The latter with a huge gain for us all (isn’t this actually overcoming the “traditional family”?), but also giving the floor to rather sensitive questions, that should be discussed with the most authentic freedom, namely, autonomy. For instance, reforming Law no. 40 in order to enable surrogacy in Italy as well for women’s couples or for single women may advance issues of health damage linked to the more invasive techniques of heterologous artificial fertilization, which raises several warnings, especially from ecofeminists.
Let’s talk, let’s argue about it, but please do not censure ourselves (“you cannot argue this because it resembles what Meloni says…”). It’s time for thinking. Of course, one can always be satisfied with conflating freedom with transgression, endorsing a reactive rebelliousness leading us to our own subalternity (“you wanted me to be a mother, just look: I spit on it, and I make a business from my baby bump”). However, at least honestly speaking, the “cleavage” between moderate and subaltern feminism and radical feminism has always run precisely on the confusion between mere rebellion and the seek for freedom – the appalling Difference Feminism that Melandri depicts as old-fashioned and obsolete, dating it back to the eighties. To the Seventies, she may well add in this regard, when some women, in order to oppose patriarchy, found nothing better to claim than the right to get an abortion at the nineth month of pregnancy, whereas the Radical women pointed out that politics cannot be made with unreal demands such as the right to infanticide. Today, to feel free, the right to sell or give children for free is claimed. Who puts old wine into new bottles?
The original Italian version of this post was previously published on the Newspaper “Il Manifesto“, on July 12, 2023
(https://ilmanifesto.it/gpa-non-confondiamo-liberta-con-subalternita)
*Full Professor, University of Cagliari
