The Market of Exceptions on the Social Issues Agenda

Not long ago, I wrote in this magazine about São Paulo state legislator Guto Zacarias, who pressured his then-girlfriend to terminate a pregnancy while building his political career as one of Brazil’s leading defenders of the pro-life agenda. The episode wouldn’t be a problem in itself, were it not for the gap between his public rhetoric and his choices in his private life.

Now, a similar scandal has just brought down one of Germany’s leading politicians.

Jens Spahn, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), recently announced the birth of his son through surrogacy, carried out in the United States. At first glance, there’s nothing particularly scandalous about this. It’s a same-sex couple who decided to pursue a legal procedure in another country to start a family.

Surrogacy, popularly known in Portuguese as “barriga de aluguel” (rented womb), is the technique by which a woman carries a baby for another person or couple, who will take on parenthood of the child after birth. The procedure emerged precisely to allow the formation of families that, for medical or biological reasons, could not otherwise exist.

It’s true that surrogacy involves legitimate moral dilemmas. The problem, however, begins when the decision to use it is made precisely by someone who spent years advocating that this option be denied to everyone else.

As Health Minister and later as one of his party’s main leaders, Spahn consistently supported the ban on surrogacy in Germany. Months ago, his own party officially reaffirmed this position once again. When it became public that he and his husband had used the procedure in the United States, pressure was immediate, including from within his own party. Days later, Spahn resigned as leader of his parliamentary group.

In accepting the resignation, Chancellor Friedrich Merz summed up the issue in one sentence: “Credibility is politics’ greatest asset.” Spahn also acknowledged that his private decision to start a family had become incompatible with the position he held.

The difference between the German case and the Brazilian one lies precisely in the outcome. In Germany, the inconsistency cost him his position. In Brazil, it produced little more than a few days of outrage on social media. Guto Zacarias continues to hold his seat as if nothing had happened.

As long as abortion, assisted reproduction, surrogacy, marriage, or end-of-life issues remain matters decided by the Legislature, a market of exceptions will continue to exist.

Those with money travel. Those who can afford it pay for the procedure in another country. Those who hold positions of power find legal alternatives. Those who write the rules often manage to escape them. The law remains in place for everyone else. This is how a market of exceptions is born.

There was a time when moral scandals involved politicians who condemned homosexuality while secretly maintaining same-sex relationships. Today the script has changed, but the scandal is the same: advocating that the State prohibit others from doing exactly what they themselves do in private.

This is the point where the debate stops being about Jens Spahn or Guto Zacarias. The real problem is allowing personal convictions to be turned into laws capable of regulating the private lives of millions of people.

Sooner or later, reality knocks on the door of those who make the laws. And when that happens, many discover that living is far harder than legislating.

Originally published in Portuguese by Crusoé.