The surrogacy debate in Spain: the story of Ana Obregón’s baby

Ana Obregón, the 68-year-old Spanish actress and presenter who, by allowing herself to be photographed in Miami with a baby born from surrogacy in her arms, fueled the political debate in Spain on surrogacy, added this Wednesday an explosive detail: “This girl is not my daughter, but my niece,” Obregón confessed to Hola magazine.

In an exclusive interview she gave to the weekly, she clarified that the little girl is the daughter of Alex Lequioher only son, who died three years ago, aged 27, of cancer.

“This it was Alex’s last wish, that of giving birth to a child of his,” said Obregón cuddling Ana Sandra, born on March 20. “And so she communicated it orally to her father and to me a week before she died,” he added.

In the complaint, the actress clarified that her son, before undergoing the oncological treatment he had to face, froze sperm in a New York clinic.

It’s nothing new: Cancer treatments can affect fertility, so some men and women battling the disease preserve the chances of future parents through cryopreservation of own oocytes and sperm.

“When my son was diagnosed with cancer and was about to start chemotherapy, the doctors advised him to keep samples of his sperm, in case the drugs hit him in the future, to make sure he could have children,” she said. Obregon.

In other words, in your case, the child who is developed and raised in a surrogate mother is, genetically, his son’s daughter deceased and her granddaughter.

an illegal procedure​

In Spain, surrogacy This is illegal. For this reason, last week, when the title on the cover of Hola indicated Obregón as “Mother of a Girl for Surrogacy in Miami”the issue leapt into the political arena and no party wanted to be excluded from the debate.

“The law on abortion specifies that it is illegal and recognizes (surrogacy) as a form of violence against women,” underlined the Minister for Equal Opportunities, Irene Montero.

“Moreover its advertising is prohibited”, he added, alluding to companies that engage in surrogacy abroad but have offices in Spain, where they promote their services.

“It is an exploitation of women and damage to children’s rights,” said the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría. “This is called surrogacy, not surrogacy,” Alegría insisted.

This was registered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 3,400 boys and girls born from surrogacy which were registered, between 2010 and July 2022, in Spanish consulates in 12 countries.

To prevent this from continuing to happen, the spokesman of the PSOE – the majority party in the government coalition – in Congress, Patxi López, has proposed tightening up the legislation in this regard: that Spaniards cannot appeal to surrogacy in other countries and then register those children in the Spanish Civil Registry.

“We have to prevent anyone who wants to go abroad to find ways to hire a woman to have their children and then, when they arrive in Spain, they can register them normally,” López said. We need to strengthen our legislation to prevent that.” “Women’s bodies cannot be rented or bought”, underlined the PSOE spokesman.

In Spain, only Ciudadanos, the liberal party that could disappear in the next national elections, believes that surrogacy, a practice allowed in some US states, Ukraine and Canada, should be legal for Spaniards.

“A media case cannot hide the reality of thousands of families who have to resort to this assisted reproduction technique to complete a love project,” said Inés Arrimadas, spokesman for the Citizens’ Congress. Her party had already proposed regulating surrogacy in the 2015 electoral programme.

Taking advantage of the fact that the issue is on everyone’s lips, last Thursday Ciudadanos returned to deposit his bill, for the third time, in the Congress of Deputies.

The debate continues: the girl is Obregón’s legal daughter

Spanish politics, this time, has not been excluded from ruling on this crackdown on the Obregón case, an issue that promises to be at the center Spanish Holy Week conversation topic.

Because although biologically her granddaughter, Ana Obregón has enrolled the newborn Ana Sandra Lequio Obregón as his legal daughter.

Defense Minister Margarita Robles he insisted on the illegality which in Spain represents the fact of carrying a child in a womb other than that of the woman who will register that newborn as her own. According to Spanish law, the mother is always the woman who gives birth.

However, Robles empathized with Ana Obregón’s personal situation.

“It is a subject that arouses a certain curiosity but we should also all get used to respecting personal reasons, because a person makes a decision,” the minister said on Wednesday. I believe that here, in Spain, we all always become judges and give our opinion on what others are doing, many times without having concrete data,” he said.

From the Secretary of State for Equality, his manager, Angela Rodríguez -from Podemos-, has not missed the opportunity to rail against the PSOEhis partners in Moncloa.

According to the official, when the abortion law was reformed, Podemos proposed to the PSOE that surrogacy be one of the crimes it could be prosecuted abroad“But the PSOE did not want to carry out this measure,” he said.

Last week, the president of the People’s Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, did his utmost propose a debate. But he commented: “You can’t in any case commodify any kind of business related to surrogacy.”

Who is the child’s biological mother?

Meanwhile, the Spanish press, especially those specializing in the private life of celebrities, goes further into Obregón’s story and assures that the woman who gave birth to Ana Sandra she is Cuban and that he has two biological children.

Ana Obregón, for her part, celebrates her happiness and says the debate surrounding the birth of her granddaughter it’s stupid.

“This assisted reproductive technique has been used for many years and is legal in many countries around the world. Many couples who cannot have children or same-sex couples or for any reason use this technique. But what scandal is this now? “In Spain, my goodness, we are in the last century,” she said.

Five children?

“I died on May 13, 2020 (when he lost his son) and I was reborn on March 20, 2023 (when his granddaughter was born), just like that,” Obregón said.

“It was very difficult. The pregnancy didn’t happen on the first try, far from it; i have been several times and every time I didn’t come out I was terribly upset and started all over again. It’s been a battleIt’s a long road, but it’s what kept me alive. It is that if it weren’t for this, I would no longer be here, ”she assured.

And left a door open: “Aless wanted to have five children”, slipped

Those who know her don’t rule out trying to give Ana Sandra a little brother.

ap​