Italy’s parliament made it illegal on Wednesday for couples to go abroad to have a baby via surrogacy — a pet project of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party which activists say is meant to target same-sex partners.

Since taking office in 2022, Meloni has pursued a highly conservative social agenda, looking to promote what she sees as traditional family values, making it progressively harder for LGBTQ couples to become legal parents.

The upper house Senate voted into law a bill proposed by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party by 84 votes to 58. The bill was already approved by the lower house last year.

The legislation extends a surrogacy ban already in place in Italy since 2004 to those who go to countries such as the United States or Canada, where it is legal, imposing jail terms of up to two years and fines of up to €1 million ($1.1 million).

“Motherhood is absolutely unique, it absolutely cannot be surrogated, and it is the foundation of our civilization,” Brothers of Italy senator Lavinia Mennuni said during the parliamentary debate. “We want to uproot the phenomenon of surrogacy tourism.”

Earlier this year, Meloni called surrogacy an ‘inhuman’ practice that treated children as supermarket products, echoing a position expressed by the Catholic Church.

On Tuesday, demonstrators gathered near the Senate voicing their outrage at the bill, saying the government was lashing out at LGBTQ people and damaging those who wanted to have children despite the fact that Italy has a sharply declining birth rate.

“If someone has a baby, they should be given a medal. Here instead you are sent to jail … if you don’t have children in the traditional way,” Franco Grillini, a long-time activist for LGBTQ rights in Italy, told Reuters at the demonstration.

Rainbow Families President Alessia Crocini said 90% of Italians who choose surrogacy are heterosexual couples but they mostly do so in secret, meaning the new ban would de facto affect only gay couples who cannot hide it.

The clampdown on surrogacy comes against the backdrop of falling birthrates, with national statistics institute ISTAT saying in March that births had dropped to a record low in 2023 — the 15th consecutive annual decline.

“This is a monstrous law. No country in the world has such a thing,” said Grillini, referring to the government’s move to prevent Italians from taking advantage of practices that are perfectly legal in some countries.