Family Over Party: CDU’s Jens Spahn Quits Top Post After Surrogacy Backlash
Published on 07/18/2026 at 16:13 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The moral uproar over a private family decision has cost Jens Spahn his role as leader of Germany’s Union parliamentary group. The CDU politician announced his resignation on Saturday, bowing to days of mounting pressure from his own party ranks after he and his husband, Daniel Funke, became fathers through a surrogate mother in the United States.
In a letter to the faction sent early Saturday afternoon, Spahn said the conflict between his personal life and his political duties had become untenable. “Family is the most important thing to me,” he wrote. He had already briefed Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Bavarian Premier Markus Söder before making the move public.
Calls for Spahn to step down had escalated rapidly since Friday. The first demand came from CDU state leader Daniel Peters of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, who argued that the party’s credibility was at stake. A particularly pointed appeal arrived from the CDU city association in Brilon — Chancellor Merz’s hometown — in the form of an open letter urging Spahn’s removal. Veteran conservative figures Wolfgang Bosbach and Michael Brand also piled on, with Brand accusing Spahn of a “moral breach of law” against the Union’s core values.
The controversy is grounded in a clear policy conflict. At a federal party congress in February 2026, the CDU reaffirmed its strict ban on surrogacy in Germany, including even altruistic models. Mechthild Heil, a prominent voice in the Frauen-Union (Women’s Union), had argued that women must not be instrumentalized for reproductive purposes. Critics quickly pointed to Spahn’s own record: as federal health minister from 2018 to 2021 and in earlier statements, he had repeatedly expressed skepticism toward liberalizing surrogacy law. Now he is using the very practice he questioned. Both the Greens and the Free Democrats labeled the behavior hypocritical.
Chancellor Merz called the resignation “right and unavoidable.” He had kept a low profile earlier in the week but held a crisis meeting with Spahn and Söder on Saturday. Merz said he would present a proposal for a successor soon. Until then, CSU regional group leader Alexander Hoffmann will run the parliamentary group on an interim basis. Spahn had originally planned to hand over his position in September, but the intensifying backlash forced an earlier exit.
The criticism was not limited to political circles. Protestant regional bishop Ernst-Wilhelm Gohl and Catholic Bishop Stefan Oster both condemned the surrogacy as a violation of ethical principles. Spahn, in a podcast interview, defended his choice, saying he and his husband had wrestled with the decision for a long time. He stressed that he did not intend to push for a change in German law.
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