Jens Spahn quits as CDU parliamentary leader after surrogacy revelation

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BRUSSELS — Jens Spahn, a senior lawmaker with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz Christian Democrats, resigned from his post as the party’s parliamentary leader on Saturday amid controversy over his use of a surrogate to have a child.

Spahn came under growing pressure to step down after he revealed earlier this week that he and his husband had become parents using a surrogate mother in the United States, despite the practice being banned in Germany.

“Over the past few days, I’ve realized that my personal happiness in starting a family with my husband and becoming a father is incompatible with my political office,” Spahn wrote in a letter to his colleagues on Saturday, obtained by German media .

“The gap between my private decision to have a child through surrogacy and the understandable expectations placed on me as chair of our parliamentary group has become greater than I anticipated,” he added.

Although surrogacy itself is illegal in Germany, there is no penalty for bringing up a child born through a surrogate mother abroad.

But Spahn, a former health minister, faced accusations of hypocrisy as Germany’s Christian Democrats are firmly opposed to surrogacy, a position the party reaffirmed earlier this year. Spahn himself had also in the past expressed skepticism about legalising the practice.

Several Christian Democrats called for Spahn to resign this week. Merz, meanwhile, on Friday announced that the surrogacy controversy would be a topic of debate at the party’s next executive committee meeting, and several German media outlets reported Saturday morning that the chancellor had asked Spahn to quit.

On X, Merz described Spahn’s decision to resign as “right and inevitable.” He added: “Credibility is the most valuable asset in politics.”