July 17, 2026, 6:36 p.mJuly 17, 2026, 6:36 p.m
Sermons water and drinks wine: CDU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn.Image: keystone
Jens Spahn is currently in the focus of the German press – because of his recently born child from a surrogate mother. The explosive thing about it: The CDU politician has spoken out several times in the past against the legalization of surrogacy in Germany.
Spahn has now commented on the debacle in the podcast of the German journalist Paul Ronzheimer. It wasn’t an easy step, said Spahn: “I struggled with myself for a long time, also when it came to the topic of surrogacy. I’ve been torn for a long time. But it was precisely because of this struggle and dealing with the topic that we decided on this path.”
In the podcast, Sphan tried to make it clear that in Germany only the arrangement of surrogacy and medical treatment as well as the insertion of an egg and all medical supervision of the process are prohibited:
“Becoming a parent or being a surrogate mother is not a criminal offense.”
That’s why we turned our attention to the USA. However, he and his husband spoke to various surrogate mothers in the USA over the years in order to get an idea of the surrogate mother situation there. Ultimately, he would have been convinced that the surrogate mother chooses the parents at the agencies there, not the other way around.
He faces the political discussion that his fatherhood has triggered. “I just have to create the balance,” said Spahn. «It is and remains something very private. I want to protect my family.”
Ronzheimer finally addresses the elephant in the room: whether it is not a double standard that Spahn, as a powerful top politician with a role model function, goes abroad to circumvent a ban and therefore does not adhere to something that he, in principle, helped decide on himself.
Spahn says that as a Christian he knows that “one is pure teaching and the other is real life. And that sometimes there is no black and white and no easy decisions.” Again he noted that he had done nothing illegal. When asked about an earlier statement in which he strongly criticized the idea of a “rented womb,” Spahn once again pointed to his inner conflict and the desire to have children that had arisen in the meantime.
Ronzheimer continues: At the last CDU party conference, MPs voted on a motion that would ban altruistic surrogacy in Germany. He asks Spahn how he voted. He does not give a clear answer, but makes it clear that he did not vote against the ban. And why?
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Maybe I should have done it.”
However, if a motion for legalization were introduced by another party in the Bundestag, he would not vote for it, said Spahn. He could not demand group discipline from the CDU, but then he could vote against majority decisions of the group.
(cpf, supplemented with material from sda)