A prominent figure in German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right party resigned his leadership post Saturday, party sources told AFP, amid controversy over his use of a surrogate mother in the US despite a ban on the practice in Germany.
“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,” Jens Spahn, the chairman of the CDU’s faction in parliament, wrote in a letter to colleagues that was obtained by AFP.
The CDU party is vehemently opposed to surrogate pregnancies, having most recently voted to maintain Germany’s ban at a party congress in February.
Merz welcomed Spahn’s resignation, saying that the decision to step down was “right and unavoidable”.
While crediting Spahn with helping the CDU return to power, the chancellor added: “Credibility is the most valuable asset in politics.”
Immediate criticism
Spahn and his husband recently became parents to a child by using a surrogate mother in the United States.
That decision immediately attracted criticism from within the CDU after the news broke in the German press on Thursday, including calls for Spahn to resign, as well as charges of hypocrisy from other politicians.
Spahn had initially sought to defend himself in a podcast interview with the Bild newspaper on Friday.
He said he “had “wrestled with myself for a long time, including on the issue of surrogacy” before finally deciding to have a child that way.
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But on Saturday, Spahn told his colleagues 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 proven more difficult than I had anticipated”.
Opposition lawmakers welcomed Spahn’s resignation.
Luigi Pantisano, a leader of the hard-left Die Linke, said that Spahn’s decision to hire a surrogate mother in the US “once again reveals a double standard”.
“The law always applies to ordinary people, but for top politicians, they apparently apply only until they have enough money to go circumvent them abroad,” Pantisano told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
Among those in the CDU who had called for Spahn’s ouster was the regional party chairman in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, who on Friday called Spahn’s decision “completely unacceptable”.
The head of the CDU’s group for older members, Hubert Hueppe, told Der Spiegel magazine that he was “personally shocked” by Spahn’s decision to go against the CDU’s “clear stance” on the issue.
“Of course, I can understand that everyone desires a child, including homosexual couples,” Hueppe said, but added that the debate is over “whether women are being instrumentalised”.
Merz had warned on Friday that the party’s national executive committee would discuss the matter. He  also said he saw “no reason” to change Germany’s laws on surrogate pregnancy or alter the CDU’s longstanding opposition.
Former minister
Sources close to Spahn told Focus magazine that US regulations aimed at protecting women were a decisive factor in the couple’s decision to go there for a surrogate mother.
Spahn, 46, previously served as health minister during the Covid-19 pandemic under former chancellor Angela Merkel.
In recent years, he became a prominent voice on the CDU’s right-wing flank, notably pushing for a more hardline stance on immigration.
The parliamentary leader for the opposition Green Party, Franziska Brantner, told the Rheinische Post that Spahn’s resignation was long overdue, even though she described the surrogacy controversy as “merely the final straw”.
“On a personal level, however, I wish him all the best,” Brantner added.