German conservative parliamentary leader resigns over surrogacy debate – POLITICO

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.