LETTER FROM MADRID
Ana Obregon has long been one of Spain’s favorite celebrities. Sexy actress from the movies of destape (“naked”) of the 1980s, who became a star of the small screen in successful series in the 1990s and 2000s, presenter or participant in entertainment programs and accustomed to the press of the heart, this 68-year-old actress still recently presented the special New Year’s program of Spanish television TVE. It is not certain that it will remain so, as the controversy it has aroused is so lively.
This celebrity appeared on the front page of the magazine Hello on March 28, holding a newborn baby, sitting in a wheelchair outside Memorial Regional Hospital in Miami, Florida, where the words “Mother baby trolley”as if she had really just given birth to the child, born of a surrogacy process (GPA).
On Friday April 21, the Telecinco channel devoted an entire program to her, during which she did not rule out having other children. Meanwhile, she admitted the Miami-born baby was conceived with the frozen sperm of her only son, who died of cancer in 2020, aged 27. Ana Obregon is thus both the legal mother and the biological grandmother of the child. “I will never be alone again”she wrote on Instagram, assuring that she “lives again”. According to her, she only respected the last wish of her son, who wanted to have children, although post mortem.
In Spain, the case, described as “Dantesque”, “aberrant” Or “sinister” on social networks, made the headlines of the press and caused the amazement of the Spaniards, who judged the star ” self-centered “. Ana Obregon obtained the support of only a few compatriots who considered her decision ” brave “.
A political subject
History has revived the debate on surrogacy in Spain, an illegal practice in this country, as in France, but which many personalities abroad have resorted to in recent years, without hiding it. From Baroness Thyssen, in 2007, then aged 64, to actor and singer Miguel Bosé, in 2011, aged 55, to former Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who had recourse to a mother carrier in 2017, at age 32.
“It is a form of violence against women”reacted the Spanish Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, of the Podemos party (radical left), who asked not to forget the precariousness in which those who agree to “praise their belly”. An opinion shared by the Socialist Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, who pointed out that “People are not just another consumer product, let alone children”. She recalled that the Spanish Supreme Court considered surrogacy as a “serious violation of human rights and fundamental rights”, and that advertising for surrogacy is prohibited.
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