A senior member of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's ruling CDU party has resigned after having a baby born through a surrogate mother in the U.S., contrary to his own party’s position on surrogacy.
Jens Spahn, who was Parliamentary Group Leader of the CDU/CSU alliance, announced on Wednesday that he and his husband Daniel Funke had become parents by using a surrogate mother in the U.S.
In a letter dated Saturday, Spahn said that he had informed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that he was resigning from his position as chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group.
“In recent days it has become clear to me that my personal happiness, starting a family with my husband and becoming a father is incompatible with my political office,” a translation of his letter from German read.
“The balancing act between my private decision to have a child through surrogacy and the understandable expectations placed on me as Chairman of our parliamentary group has become greater than I anticipated.”
Surrogacy is banned in Germany and is punishable with a prison sentence of three years, although it is legal to bring up a child born to a surrogate mother abroad.
The CDU party has backed the existing policy and Spahn himself previously refused to relax the ban while serving as Health Minister in 2020.
Spahn faced accusations of hypocrisy from opposition politicians and those within his own party after revealing his use of a surrogate mother earlier in the week.
"Politicians who set standards for others must be measured by them too," Marion Rosin, a CDU party official, in Thuringia, central Germany said.
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