Whilst many people across the globe celebrated the birth of Jesus on Christmas day, Elton John and his civil partner David Furnish celebrated the arrival of another baby: their surrogate child, Zachary. A surrogate mother in California gave birth to the baby, having carried the child after being implanted with a donor egg from another woman.
The news has been greeted with enthusiastic approval by some in the UK. Tony and Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, well known surrogate parents themselves who became the first homosexual couple in Britain to have a baby with a surrogate mother, stated their opinion in an interview with The Telegraph that the arrival of baby Zachary would pave the way for homosexual surrogacy becoming more acceptable. This coincides with their plans to open a new surrogacy centre in Essex next month, which they envision as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for couples seeking to become surrogate parents and thereby curtail the current high costs associated with surrogacy.
The opening of the British Surrogacy Centre (as it will be known) is an indication of how the family is being re-defined by those who seek the normalisation of homosexuality and comes at a time when Christians can face problems when seeking to offer a home to a child. Equality legislation and its judicial interpretation now means that Christian couples face an uphill struggle to meet the various criteria of local government bodies if they want to adopt or become foster parents.
Andrea Minichiello-Williams commented: "At the same time that Sir Elton John is being applauded for becoming a parent, some Christians are finding it increasingly difficult to adopt or foster children because they are penalised due to their Christian views which are not deemed politically correct. For example, Eunice and Owen Johns, two experienced foster parents, had their application to foster a child put on hold by Derby Council because they had Christian views on sexual ethics and would have taken the child to church."
"On the one hand a loving home is denied to a child because the parents are Christians, but at the same time two homosexual men can obtain a baby through a surrogate, and deny that baby a mother. This surely raises the question of whether the best interests of the child are really being taken into account in these cases or whether a secular and intolerant political ideology has become more important? Children have the best start in life when they have a mother and a father."
Commenting in The Telegraph, Josephine Quintavalle also expressed unease that, in surrogate parenting, more consideration seems to be given to adults’ desire “to have whatever they want” than to the rights of children.
Sources
Related Stories
Court to rule whether Christians are fit people to foster children
Landmark ruling weakens surrogacy laws
Stonewall encourages homosexuals to adopt children