I HAVE drafted a petition for the birthright of every child conceived by the IVF program to know the identity of their biological father and mother, and all related members of their family including grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Victoria is the only state in Australia that gives sperm donor children the legal right to find out who their biological father is. Children who have been told in early adulthood that they were conceived by a sperm donor can feel betrayed and angry they did not know of a biological father.

Only 16 State MPs voted against the NSW Same Sex Relationship Bill for a birth mother to replace the word father and paternity on birth certificates, which also omitted sperm donor fathers which means this would leave no medical history of heredity diseases. Once you start to change the structure of family you open the door to further break the structure of family.

On July 3, The Northern Daily Leader reported that more than 100 gay Australian couples have paid $80,000 to create a baby using ‘rent-a-womb’ women in the United States. A fertility clinic said “This one stop baby shopping is becoming increasingly popular among gay men in Sydney and Melbourne”.

In Los Angeles so far more than 125 gay couples have gone home with a baby, the clinic’s medical director, Dr Jeffrey Steinberg said.

“We’re up to 6-8 a month now which is a four-fold increase over two years ago. That makes Australia one of our biggest markets, neck-to-neck with Britain.

For many years, I expressed concern about children having the right to know that they were conceived by a mother and a father and that they may have extended family. I did so because I saw adult children, half brothers and sisters on the American TV show Oprah, all of them seeking to find others related by the one father who donated his sperm (for money when a student) to help bring these children into the world. If all find other siblings, the total could exceed 60, about half that number have been united already.

We cannot allow the structure of family to be undermined to the extent where the rights of adults exceed the rights of children. I have not included married couples, a mother and father, in this petition as the in-vitro fertilisation program was brought in legally for infertile married women, it was never meant to be used for single women or men.

Former Australian Democrat Leader, Don Chipp, who was an advocate for homosexual rights said: “That the idea of subsidising single mums was just inconceivable”, April 10, 1994. He also said: “That although it may be an old fashioned concept, I am firm in the belief that to willfully bring a child into the world without a legally defined father, is wrong.”

Judith Law

GUNNEDAH