Jens Spahn apologizes: “I was too cowardly to show my colors openly”

dpa | The former Union parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag Jens Spahn has asked the CDU members of his constituency to apologize for his handling of surrogacy in the USA. “I was too cowardly to openly show my colors on this sensitive issue,” writes Spahn in the letter, which is available to the German Press Agency. Several media outlets had previously reported.

In the letter, after withdrawing from the public during the summer break, he refers to the discussion that the birth of his son with the help of a surrogate mother sparked in the USA. Above all, Spahn wrote to his party friends in his constituency of Steinfurt I/Borken I in Münsterland that he had betrayed trust due to the contradiction between his previously publicly expressed stance and his personal decision. “I would like to apologize for that.”

In the letter he also discusses his motives: For many years he and his husband “considered, examined, rejected and reconsidered” different ways to fulfill their shared desire to start a family. During this process, his rather skeptical attitude towards surrogacy changed.

The specific conditions for this in the USA as well as the German jurisprudence, which in 2018 made parenthood after surrogacy established by a court in the USA compatible with German law under certain conditions, were important.

“But I failed to disclose this weighing process in a timely manner and to explain my changed position,” he admits. "I wanted to avoid a difficult debate, also to protect my future family - and in the end I triggered a much more difficult debate. That was wrong. I deeply regret that."

At the end of July, the 46-year-old resigned from the chairmanship of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag after he made it public that he and his husband had had a child with the help of a surrogate mother in the USA. This was also criticized in the Union because surrogacy is banned in Germany and Spahn's party is clearly against legalization. He himself had done this in the past.

Spahn retained his Bundestag mandate. He will now be a member of the budget committee. As a directly elected member of his constituency, he wanted to continue to represent the interests of his homeland in the Bundestag and, as a new member of the Budget Committee, to build on the content of his previous parliamentary work, he explained in the letter. “I would like to carry out both tasks with all my strength - in the knowledge that trust has to be earned again and again.”