Society

Christian lobby opposed to NSW surrogacy moves

The Canberra-based Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has asked the NSW Government to not follow suit Victoria in allowing "two men, two women and single women to acquire a baby through surrogacy."

The Lobby said it deprives the children of the complementary love and care for a mother and a father.

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said surrogacy was already fraught with emotional, biological and legal complexities for children, as well as for women who carry someone else’s baby, but same-sex and single women surrogacy was a betrayal of children’s best interests.

“The recommendations of a NSW Legislative Council inquiry into regulating surrogacy in the State are not in the best interests of children and basically pave the way for two men or two women to ‘order’ a baby they are not even genetically connected to,” Mr Wallace said.

The NSW Government was urged to "put the needs of children above the desires of adults and, if they go ahead with surrogacy legislation, to restrict surrogacy to infertile married heterosexual couples, with gametes derived from both intending parents so that they are biologically related to the child."

“Clearly it is not in the best interests of children for the State to allow them to be conceived through assisted reproductive technology and then to be placed in an unnatural family construct that denies them a mother or a father.”

Wallace suggests that the NSW wait for the outcome of the national surrogacy review due later this year before moving on this report.

“This is a very important issue which will concern many people. If same-sex surrogacy is permitted it will further undermine the natural family in NSW," he said.

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