Italian interior minister Angelino Alfano received flak from LGBT activists and same-sex marriage advocates after he compared surrogacy to a sex crime.
"Stepchild (adoption) really risks bringing the country closer to wombs-for-rent, towards the most vile, illegal trade that man has invented," he said in an interview with the Avvenire newspaper, according to BBC News.
"We want wombs-for-rent to become a universal crime, which is punished with a jail term. Just as happens for sex crimes," Alfano added.
Alfano' remark comes amid Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's push to grant family rights to same-sex couples. Italy is a major European country which denies parenthood rights to same-sex couples, The Guardian reported.
The draft legislation for providing parenthood rights to same-sex couples will be again placed in Italian Parliament at the end of January.
"Maybe I haven't been clear. As long as gay unions have the same rights as families and they try to implement stepchild adoption or any other stratagem to get to that end our answer is 'No, no and no'," he said while reaffirming his New Center Right Party' opposition to contested legislation, according to The Telegraph. His party is an alliance partner in Renzi's coalition government.
"Our battle to punish with prison sentences those who use womb-for-rent is parallel, not up for trade," he added.
