Gay men in bid for surrogate's baby

By MARTIN JOHNSTON and NZPA

New Zealand's first application by two gay men to have a surrogate's baby will force authorities to decide on the rights of the child to have a mother.

The New Zealand ethics committee is considering a case of two men - a New Zealander who has returned to Auckland from Europe with his European partner - who have asked the New Zealander's sister to be the surrogate mother.

The European man would father the child through artificial insemination. The couple plan to return to Europe after the birth.

The National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction considered the proposal in March, but deferred a decision, pending more information.

According to minutes of the meeting, members were concerned about:

* The welfare of the child.

* The young age of the men and the age difference between them.

* Legal issues about the guardianship of the child.

* The health of the surrogate mother.

* The child being raised overseas away from its birth mother.

The committee noted that this was the first time it had considered a surrogacy application in which the commissioning couple were of the same sex. The Catholic Church says it would be wrong to deprive the child of its mother.

John Kleinsman, spokesman for the Nathaniel Centre, the New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre, said a child's right to be brought up in a close relationship with its mother and father was crucial.

"This issue is not primarily about adults and their rights - it is about the rights and welfare of a child," he said.

"In this situation, what is being proposed would mean deliberately depriving a child of daily intimate contact with its genetic and gestational mother in order to fulfil the desires of adults.

"Do adults have the right to deliberately deprive a child in such a way when it is ultimately not being done for the best interests of the child? I think not."

Bill Atkin, associate professor of law at Victoria University, said surrogacy was not illegal and two gay men should not be discriminated against.

Professor Donald Evans, director of the Bioethics Centre at Otago University, said laws here and overseas required clinicians to decide whether it was in the interest of the child to be born to this couple.

In Britain, laws required authorities to take into account a child's need of a father.

"You could imagine that in the homosexual case a need of the child including the need of a child for a mother.

"We have no evidence to show that homosexual couples couldn't make good parents.

"We know that many other heterosexual couples make very bad parents."

Labour MP Dianne Yates, whose Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill will be reported back to the House before the end of this month, said surrogacy was a complicated issue.

"In New Zealand we've had some cases that the ethics committee has turned down," she told Holmes last night. "Everyone has a right to have a family, the United Nations says that.

"We don't have a right to demand of somebody else that they provide us with that family and we must always be careful to protect the mother.

"Because even if you have a surrogate child in New Zealand at the moment, you still have to go through the adoption process and the mother still has another chance to say if she wants to give up the baby or not.

"When we are using the birth technologies ... if something were to go wrong it would rebound on the Minister of Health, who would be responsible, and therefore we can't be too careful."