He did not survive this one. Spahn stirred a national outcry this week when he announced, on social media and in the tabloid paper Bild, that he and his husband, Daniel Funke, had become fathers to a son via a surrogate in the United States.
Surrogacy is prohibited under German law. Spahn had defended that ban throughout his career, including as health minister.
The birth announcement brought immediate cries of hypocrisy from across the political spectrum, including in Spahn’s own party. Some regional leaders of the Christian Democrats demanded his ouster. News outlets teemed with outrage.
“Is Spahn, the highest representative of the government coalition in the Bundestag, above the law?” asked the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a top national newspaper.
Spahn defended himself, essentially, on a technicality: German law does not punish parents who use surrogates abroad. He told a podcast interviewer he had struggled with the decision but chose to prioritise his family.
On Saturday, Merz called on Spahn to step down as parliamentary leader, German media outlets reported. Almost immediately, Spahn complied, though it appeared on Saturday he was leaving only his leadership post, and not his seat in parliament.
Merz praised the decision, writing on social media platform that it was “right and was inevitable”.
Analysts said Spahn had broken the trust of German voters and risked dragging down Merz’s already low popularity, at a time when the chancellor is trying to claim a win from his government’s agreement on new measures meant to boost the flagging German economy.
They said Merz had most likely applied quick pressure to resolve the issue before Sunday, when he is scheduled to sit for arguably his most important television appearance of the year: a traditional “summer interview” with the public broadcaster ZDF. Spahn’s actions had threatened to dominate that conversation, undermining Merz’s economic message.
“Spahn took liberties for himself he was willing to deny others,” said Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, a German-American political analyst in Berlin. “That hypocrisy was simply too raw.”
In a resignation letter, Spahn expressed a degree of surprise at the controversy.
“In recent days, I have become aware that my personal happiness of starting a family and becoming a father together with my husband is not compatible with my political office,” he wrote.
He added that the tension between his private surrogacy decision and the expectations of him in his public role had become “greater than I expected”.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Jim Tankersley
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