The birth mother was a client of the Center for Surrogate Parenting based in Encino, California, which has been providing surrogacy arrangements for gay would-be parents since 1989.
Some would say: Elton John and David Furnish will make affectionate, even doting, parents.
There are other aspects of the arrangement, though, that seem a bit problematic, though they’re probably unavoidable when two blokes set about having a baby.
Little Zachary was, it turns out, conceived from an egg donated by one woman and was carried to birth by another. On the initial birth certificate for little Zachary, however, it seems Elton John is called the child’s father, David Furnish the mother, though in a later draft this will probably be amended to Parent 1 and Parent 2.Somewhat technical, but consider the implicatioins for Zachary’s identity
As for Britain, as a result of the passing of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act last April, a UK birth certificate is now rather a liberal construct. The birth mother will initially be registered as the child’s mother and her husband, if any, as its father but in surrogacy cases, this is rendered null by the issue of something called a Parental Order which replaces the original certificate with one that registers the parents-of-choice, who may be two men or two women. It’s a final departure from the notion that the certificate has anything to do with biological realities rather than social aspirations.And here are the three points I’d like to make:
1) A child has been robbed of her or his:
- ability to know where they come from.
- the sense of identity that comes from having a father and a mother.
2) When God’s will for families are followed, it brings about the greatest blessings.
3) If your sense of self has been compromised – there is the very real potential for that too to be redeemed by Jesus.
