Jens Spahn, a senior German politician and ally of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, resigned as chair of the Christian Democrat (CDU) party on Saturday after he and his husband, Daniel Funke, used a surrogate mother to become parents—a practice he had previously criticised and that his party strongly opposes.
Surrogacy ban in Germany led to US arrangement
Surrogacy is banned in Germany under the 1990 Embryo Protection Act, punishable with up to three years' imprisonment or a fine. Spahn, as health minister in 2020, refused to relax this policy. To have a child, he and Funke turned to a surrogate mother in the United States.
In 2015, Spahn wrote: “As a gay man and a Christian I find it personally very hard to warm to the idea of a rented womb.” On Wednesday, he welcomed the child, named Georg, telling German newspaper Bild: “Georg is our greatest joy. This feeling is almost impossible to put into words.”
Hypocrisy accusations from within and outside the CDU
The announcement sparked immediate criticism, with many accusing Spahn of hypocrisy. Marion Rosin, a CDU member in Thuringia and part of the Women’s Union, told the BBC: “Politicians who set standards for others must be measured by them too. If that credibility is gone, resignation is a matter of consequence.”
In February, while the surrogate mother was about four months pregnant, the CDU voted at a party conference to maintain the ban on surrogacy. Spahn, 46, a prominent voice on the party's right wing and a hardliner on immigration, initially defended his actions in media interviews. He told Bild he had “wrestled with myself for a long time, including on the issue of surrogacy” before deciding to proceed.
Party colleagues and rivals call for resignation
The defence failed to pacify critics. Daniel Peters, leader of the CDU in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, told Bild on Friday: “Jens Spahn is no longer tenable as chair of the parliamentary group and must resign.” He added it was “completely unacceptable” for Spahn to vote one way as a senior CDU politician and then “act quite differently as a private individual.”
Janosch Dahmen, a member of the Green party, said the issue was about double standards and political credibility, not about Spahn’s child. “Anyone who advocates for rules politically should be able to explain clearly why those rules apparently do not apply to them personally,” Dahmen said.
As calls mounted, Merz declined to comment on Spahn’s future, telling reporters on Friday the matter would be discussed at the party’s next executive meeting. That day, Spahn told Bild: “One thing is clear to me: For me, and this becomes clearer to me every hour, there is nothing more important than my family.”
Resignation and reaction
On Saturday, Spahn resigned from his party position, stating: “In recent days, I have come to realise that my personal happiness in starting a family with my husband and becoming a father is incompatible with my political office.”
Merz posted on X that Spahn’s decision was “right and inevitable. Credibility is the most valuable asset in politics,” he wrote.
