Qld: now the battle of the e petitions!

Queensland got more confusing for those wanting to sign a petition about surrogacy, as there are now competing e petitions!

In the pink corner is the e petition by psychologist Paul Martin, sponsored by Labor MP Jackie Trad, that calls for the scrapping of changes to the Surrogacy Act, as the changes would lead to discrimination, or in the words of the President of the Queensland Law Society, Dr John de Groot, a “miscarriage of justice”. That e-petition is petition 1919-12 called Amendments to Surrogacy Act 2010. I urge my fellow Queenslanders to sign that e petition.

In the black and white corner is the e petition by Australian Christian Lobby convenor Wendy Francis, sponsored by LNP MP Trevor Watts, which speaks for itself:

that the Surrogacy Act 2010 allows single people or same sex couples to obtain a child by altruistic surrogacy, thereby depriving the child of either a mother or a father;

·         that it is an offence against a child to wilfully deprive that child of the knowledge and care of their own parents, as stated in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child: “The child shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of their parents … a child of tender years shall not, save in exceptional circumstances, be separated from their mother”;

·         that society has caused grave suffering to children in the past by depriving them of their right to both a mother and a father: whether by preventing knowledge of their origins (as with children of anonymous sperm donors) or by compelling them to live without their mother (as with babies removed from unwed mothers) or by the practice of the Aboriginal “stolen generations”;

·         that the “equal right” of every child to enter the world with both a mother and father must take priority over the alleged “equal right” of single people or same sex couples to obtain a child by surrogacy.