LEGAL SURROGACY WIN FOR GAYS & LESBIANS

By Jonathan Duffy

In an historic moment for gay people in Queensland, surrogacy is now legal.
Anna Bligh’s controversial altruistic surrogacy bill was passed on Thursday 12 February at 8pm.
This means that it is now possible for gay singles and couples to seek a surrogate mother in order to have children.
The bill has been the subject of much heated debate and climaxed with two Labour MPs crossing the floor to vote against it.
Former Minister Margaret Keech and Capalaba MP Michael Choi both voted against the bill.
Mr Choi said that he had concerns about the practice of surrogacy because there was a pre-meditated intention to separate a child from its birth mother.
Altruistic surrogacy means that there are no payments made or financial gain from the process.
The debate over this bill has been heated for quite some time.
Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg recently told parliament that children had a “fundamental right’’ to enter the world with a mother and a father and most Australians believed that children “do better in an environment where they have a mum and a dad’’.
Those against the bill seemed to be mainly supported by the Australian Christian Lobby who’s director Jim Wallace said that children would become another casualty in the relentless push by this unrepresentative political movement to “normalise” their relationships.
All debates aside, the bill was supported 45-36 and will apply retrospectively so non-biological parents can have their names put on the birth certificates of children already born.
The controversial surrogacy bill of 2009 will become the Surrogacy Act (Qld) 2010.
This was another great step toward changing the world for the better.