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    WHY THE SURROGACY (SAME-SEX PARENTING) LAW IS WRONG

    The Queensland Government late last year introduced the Surrogacy Bill 2009 which has now been passed into law (Feb 12th 2010).

    This new law allows any adults over 25 years of age – not only married couples, but also a single man, single woman or same-sex partners – to obtain a baby using reproductive technology such as IVF and the womb of a surrogate “mother”.

    Surrogacy itself is inherently wrong, since it involves the premeditated intention to separate a child from his or her birth-mother – a violation of nature that traumatises both the woman and the baby and defies our obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child.   Another stolen generation, with profound psychological implications for both “mother” and baby, but approved by government.

    With surrogacy, adults agree in advance to inflict lifelong identity confusion on a child, by creating her in circumstances where she cannot know who her “true mother” is. She may indeed have six adults with conflicting “parental” claims on her, but she is forcibly denied a normal mother-child relationship. That is an unjustifiable assault on the heart and mind of a developing child.

    The surrogate “mother” is not a true mother, but an emotionally detached means of reproduction. Can society afford a further degradation of the ideal of a mother and the mother-child bond, with family solidarity already so trashed by the sexual revolution?

    Still more contentiously, this lawhas become a Trojan horse for the normalisation of same-sex parenting – establishing in law the absurd proposition that two men or two women are just the same from a child’s perspective as a real mother and father.

    Is a mother irrelevant? Does a child have no need of a father?

    The Surrogacy [same-sex parenting] Act2009 says “yes”, a mother is irrelevant to her baby, and a father is unnecessary. Under this Act, for example, two men can force a baby to live her whole life without a mother, just because they want a child to call their own. The mother would cease to exist in law for the child obtained by a single man or homosexual couple.

    The father would cease to exist in law for the child obtained by a single woman or lesbian couple. The natural bonds of family and belonging would be destroyed by the legal fiction in this Bill – purely to serve the interests of adults.

    Kids’ Rights do NOT Count for Premier Anna Bligh’s government.

    The Queensland Opposition had asked, prior to the Parliamentary debate, that the question of single parent and same-sex surrogacy be separated from the question of surrogacy for a man-woman couple.

    But the Government of Premier Bligh refused, and says that all adults – even same-sex couples, a single man or a single woman – have the right to a baby of their own, even if that means adults co-operating in an assault on the heart and mind of a developing child and his or her core identity.

    The birthright of a human child, and its necessary context for full flourishing, is to have a real mother, and a secure identity within the human family.

    For the premeditated harm of depriving a child of his mother, or his father, and rupturing his sense of identity, and for the complex harm done to the birth mother and wider family including siblings, and to prevent the legislative delusion that two men are the same in a child’s life as a mother and father, the new Surrogacy Act 2009 must be radically amended or repealed.

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    THE BILL HAS BECOME LAW: WHAT IS TO BE DONE NOW?

    Help us right this wrong

    On Feb 11th 2010 the Labor Government voted to condemn future Queensland children to live their life without a mother. They voted to force other children to grow up without a father. All this was done so that “any adults” – whether single people or a  same-sex couple – can obtain a child via a surrogate womb.

    Only two Labor MPs refused to put their name to this piece of moral madness, while the entire LNP  opposition voted against it. Labor declares that there is nothing special about a mother in a baby’s life, and a couple of blokes are just as good, while the opposition LNP says that every child has the right, and should not be denied the chance, of entering life with a real mother and a real father.

    The Opposition LNP has vowed to repeal the aspects of the surrogacy laws which permit, for example, a single woman to bring a baby boy into the world with no chance of a father, or two men to bring a baby girl into the world with no hope of a mother. That LNP promise becomes our last best chance.

    Family groups in Queensland will not rest until the law in this State acknowledges the fundamental truth, inscribed by nature and not to be defaced by politicians, that every child has the right to – and deep need for – both a Mum and a Dad. Thousands of Queenslanders have petitioned the Parliament – from this site and others – against the laws that have just been passed, and that is only the beginning of raising consciousness amongst decent people about how this new law assaults the deep needs and inviolable rights of a child.

    So what did Kids Rights Count have to say on the day this piece of cultural vandalism was approved by the Labor Government?

    “This act of legislative child abuse by the Labor Government will be neither forgotten nor forgiven at the next election.”

    “We have told the Labor Party that this is something for which family groups will go to the barricades. This is an assault on the deepest relationship between a mother and child.”

    What can I do to help?

    First: please follow up with immediate action as advised by ACL’s Jim Wallace AM

    Quick action:

    • Write a short letter to the Courier Mail expressing outrage that children’s rights have been trampled by extending surrogacy to singles and homosexuals
    • Thank ALP MPs Margaret Keech (email: Albert@parliament.qld.gov.au ) and Michael Choi (email: Capalaba@parliament.qld.gov.au ) for their great courage in crossing the floor to vote against the surrogacy bill
    • If you live in a Labor electorate other than Michael Choi’s or Margaret Keech’s, please phone or e-mail to tell them you will not vote for them at the next election. MP’s details here.
    • Congratulate the LNP for its commitment to repeal this law should they win government. MP’s details here.

    Second: please donate to this campaign, to build it for the next phase – and ask concerned friends to do the same. Every dollar will be spent on the campaign to restore the fundamental rights of every Queensland child to enter this world with a mother and a father.  The Family Council of Queensland will manage all campaign funds raised by donations.

    Third: watch this website for news and developments in the campaign – which will last until the next election and beyond. Because Kids Rights Count, this issue will not be going away.

    Stay with us on this one!

    INFORM YOURSELF!

    • Read the experts’ concerns with surrogacy
    • Listen to these medical, ethical and legal opinions on the dangers of surrogacy
    • Keep visiting us at this website – especially as the campaign builds up towards the next State election - and check for news on the issue here
    • Spread the word about this sinister new law, and why surrogacy – especially same-sex surrogacy – is wrong: as the opportunity arises, consider letters to the editor (of major papers, or church and community papers), talkback radio, and getting friends up to speed and involved! [use our social bookmarking links in the bottom right of this page!]

    SOMETIME SOON, TELL YOUR STATE MP & THE PREMIER (NICELY) WHAT YOU THINK (simply follow these links):

    • EMAIL your MP & the Premier (you can find your State member’s contact details HERE – for the email address click on the ‘electorate’ link) or RING your State MP’s office and ask to be put through. If you ring and the MP is not available, leave a message stating your opposition to the new law and ask that the MP phones you back. Be polite and to the point – and your input will be very carefully noted by the MP.
    • Best of all – VISIT your MP, perhaps with a group of friends, to express your concerns

    KEY POINTS TO MAKE TO YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT AND THE PREMIER

    • Surrogacy itself is inherently wrong, since it involves the premeditated intention to separate a child from his or her birth mother – a violation of nature that traumatises both the woman and the baby and defies our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
    • Legalising surrogacy carries the risk of creating another “stolen generation”, like those children of adoption and artificial insemination who feel a deep unmet need to know their lost biological parents and possible siblings.
    • The Government’s determination to allow surrogacy for homosexual couples and single persons breaches the fundamental right of every child to at least begin life with a mother AND a father.
    • Research clearly shows that children develop best, both physically and emotionally, when they are reared in a stable heterosexual Mum and Dad family.
    • To deliberately set about to deprive a child of their mother and father is to subject the child to a social experiment, an experiment to which they are unable to consent.
    • This new law has become a Trojan horse for the normalisation of same-sex parenting – establishing in law the absurd proposition that two men or two women are just the same from a child’s perspective as a real mother and father.
    • The best interests of children are paramount and supersede any perceived ”right” same-sex couples and single persons may claim to parent children.
    • Eighty-six percent of Australians (in a recante Galay poll) believe that ideally, wherever possible, children should be raised by their biological mother and biological father.
    • This new law is unnecessary as children born as a result of a surrogacy arrangements can have their rights protected under law through amendments to the Succession Act and through parenting order applications under the existing Family Law Act.
    • Further, if Parliament wants to remove imprisonment as a penalty – and Kids Rights Count agrees with that, since it is not in the interests of a surrogate child to have her carers incarcerated – that can be done by simple amendment of the current surrogacy laws.
    • The Surrogacy Bill 2009 was not only wrong, but unnecessary. The new law must be radically amended, or fully repealed, under the next Government.

    DONATE to this campaign, to multiply our effectiveness – THANK YOU!