Spanish TV Star Causes Uproar With Surrogate Baby at 68

Ana Obregon traveled to Miami for the child
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 30, 2023 2:25 PM CDT
Spain TV Star Causes Uproar With Surrogate Baby at 68
Spanish actress Ana Obregon poses on arrival for the Goya Awards in Madrid, Spain, Feb. 17, 2013.   (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)

Spain’s ruling Socialist party said Thursday it will study toughening legislation covering surrogate pregnancies following the revelation that a 68-year-old popular Spanish television celebrity used a surrogate mother in Miami to have a baby. Actress and presenter Ana Obregon grabbed the attention of the Spanish media and the country's political parties Wednesday when the socialite magazine ¡Hola! published a front-page photograph of her with a baby in arms, announcing she was the mother of a baby girl born by a surrogate mother, per the AP.

Surrogate pregnancies are banned in Spain, although children from such pregnancies can be registered. The news triggered criticism from the leftist coalition government headed by the Socialists: Equality Minister Irene Montero of the leftist United We Can coalition partner said surrogate pregnancies were “a form of violence against women." But the main opposition conservative Popular Party surprised many by announcing that it was open to debate legalizing such pregnancies if there's no payment involved.

The fact that it concerned Obregon seemed to generate as much controversy as the issue of surrogacy itself. Obregon, a biologist who was once best known for her yearly start-of-summer magazine photo shoot in a new bikini, posted a message on her Instagram feed Wednesday saying, “A light full of love has shone on my darkness. I will never be alone again.” Spanish media highlighted the fact that the former actress, who appeared in an episode of the A-Team television series, recently lost a 27-year-old son to cancer, per the BBC. (More surrogate mother stories.)

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