Page 3628 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
reflect an applicant's right to know and perhaps if any prejudicial information is to be given it could be given jointly to an applicant and their medical practitioner together. I can see that that could make some sense in some strange extenuating circumstances.
Madam Speaker, I now go to clause 89. Clause 89 relates to an offence, and the penalty is a $50,000 fine or five years' imprisonment. It is a serious offence; there is no question about that.
Mr Connolly: Yes, kidnapping, Michael.
MR MOORE: Mr Connolly interjects and says "kidnapping". If we were dealing with kidnapping it would be an even more serious offence. In one sense it is kidnapping, but we have to take into account the emotional stress of a birth parent in this particular case. Whilst I consider it a very serious offence - I am not taking away from it, even from the kidnapping side of it - there is a question in my mind as to the level of the penalty. I would certainly ask how that level was determined. If it were just plain kidnapping, Mr Connolly, I am sure you would agree that it would be at the same level as the offence of kidnapping, which is higher than that - if I remember correctly, 12 years, and maybe $100,000.
Madam Speaker, I now move to subclause 94(1), which is even more interesting. As if the other clauses were not enough for us to say that this Bill needs further consideration, subclause 94(1) tops them off. Subclause 94(1) refers, amongst other things, to the notion of surrogacy. Whether it does it purposefully or not I am not quite sure. It certainly includes that. I have not heard any debate in the public about the notion of surrogacy. The last time anything was heard in public about surrogacy that I can remember was in April 1991 when the then Attorney-General - I think it was Bernard Collaery - said that residents should be aware that it was contrary to the adoption of children, that there would be uniform national legislation about surrogacy and how difficult it was to deal with the issue.
The question now is whether this is part of the uniform national legislation on surrogacy or is in here just by stealth. These are just questions. Is this the definition of surrogacy? I hear an interjection about whether this really is surrogacy. (Extension of time granted) Thank you, members. Madam Speaker, when I phoned parliamentary counsel today I said that it seems to me, on my reading of this, that it deals with the issue of surrogacy. Parliamentary counsel, always helpful, said yes, that it does, in a indirect way, deal with surrogacy. One definition of surrogacy is the creation of a child with a deliberate intention of separating it at birth from its mother. It is basically, as I see it, a cruel and dehumanising process of buying babies.
The underlying and severe problems with surrogacy - and this debate has not got into the public arena are: That children are treated as commodities; that the surrogate mother suffers psychological trauma and guilt associated with breaking the bond developed with the child in utero; that the children suffer from confusing family relationships and inability to obtain information about their biological origins; and that the surrogate mother is treated as a means to an end, a commodity, a baby-making factory. It exploits women and is destructive to the family of the woman who acts as a surrogate. In short, all the evils that this legislation is trying to address appear to come up with this issue of surrogacy, and it does address them. I am not suggesting to Mr Connolly that in some way it says surrogacy is okay. I am not intending to give that impression at all.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .