Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2771 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The issue which Ms Tucker has raised in respect of the amendment before the house at the moment is an example of that. As I understand it, the answer to the question that Ms Tucker has raised would be that if there were two children born to a surrogacy arrangement and the genetic parents were willing to accept only one of the two children the parentage order could not be made in respect of either child in the absence of the genetic parents being prepared to accept both children.

That is an illustration of what can happen if a child is born, even a single child, to a birth mother and the genetic parents decide not to accept that child. That child becomes, in effect, without parents willing to take responsibility for that child. The genetic parents in those circumstances, should they arise-I am not sure whether it has arisen before or is likely to arise very often; I suppose it is not-have a legal right to refuse to accept the child that has been born.

The birth mother, I believe, assumes the primary responsibility for that child. The fact the child has been born of a different genetic makeup to the birth mother does not provide the birth mother with an automatic opportunity to say that the child is somebody else's responsibility. The child is the birth mother's responsibility. Of course, the birth mother is quite likely not to wish to retain the child since she has not carried the child for her own sake, presumably.

That gives rise to one example of the sorts of complications which the new technology will potentially afford us as it becomes more widespread and more accessible. I do not look forward to the day when as a community we are confronted increasingly with these sorts of dilemmas, with dilemmas surrounding different permutations on a particular set of circumstances given rise to by the things that science can now achieve.

There is a line in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where one character meets another character and says to a third character, "Yes, I'm related to this fellow. We shared four of the same mothers." That might have sounded very funny when it was first written but it is becoming, in a sense, eerily and scarily possible with the advance of technology that people may share the responsibility entailed in creating and carrying children in a womb because that foetus becomes a portable commodity and becomes capable of being moved from one set of responsibility into another. That is a possibility which frightens me, to be perfectly frank.

A moment ago I voted in favour of this legislation because I believe that if the technology is being used in this community to facilitate surrogacy arrangements it is appropriate to allow the path to be smoothed between the birth of a child to a birth mother and the moving of the child to the genetic parents. If the birth mother wishes to surrender the child and the genetic parents wish to receive the child, then it is appropriate for the law to put no impediments in that path other than to ascertain that that transfer is in the best interests of the child.

I assume that it almost always would be in the best interests of the child for the child to become the responsibility of the genetic parents; but I leave it open, as the legislation does, to a court to find otherwise. That is why I have supported this legislation. I think that we need to make parentage orders, which is the crux of this legislation, simpler and easier to deal with and fairer on the parties concerned. But I have to say that I am going to give the amendments to be moved in the house today very careful attention to see

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .