No, surrogacy is not a human right.
The UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls has told an Australian conference on surrogacy that international law does not recognise a right to have a child “using whatever means”.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Australian, Reem Alsalem also called for an overhaul of the Sex Discrimination Act to protect the rights of biological women, and supported calls for an independent inquiry into the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s treatment of medicos who have expressed concern about pediatric gender medicine, and its relationships with transgender lobby groups.
Ms Alsalem said Australia was “absolutely” out of step with international evidence on medical treatment of gender-distressed children, and decried recent death threats allegedly made by a transgender activist against women’s advocates Sall Grover and Kirralie Smith.
Not to mention out of step with basic sanity. If a child insisted she was a cat should the child’s parents agree and dress her in a cat suit and give her kibbles for every meal?
The rapporteur was a keynote speaker at the conference titled “In the name of the Child: The Perils of Surrogate Motherhood for Mother and Baby”, hosted in Melbourne on Friday by the Association Representing Mothers Separated by Adoption.
The conference comes as the Australian Law Reform Commission undertakes a review of surrogacy laws, commissioned by the Albanese government in 2024, with findings due to be reported on September 11.
Will it find that there are no problems with surrogacy whatsoever? That’s my guess, sadly.
Ms Alsalem urged governments looking to reform surrogacy laws, including Australia’s, “not to rush into quick fixes”, and to ensure that the voices and rights of surrogate women, and children born of surrogacy, were properly taken into account.
Asked how she confronted often emotive arguments that her calls to abolish surrogacy would prevent infertile heterosexual couples and gay men from becoming parents, Ms Alsalem said: “International law doesn’t give you a right to form a family using whatever means.
“International law doesn’t support a view that just because you want to have a child with your genetic makeup, that you are entitled to have a child,” she said.
And it shouldn’t, can’t, mustn’t say otherwise, because such a law would imply that someone – some woman – has to be the “surrogate” for the couple who are entitled to have a child with their genetic makeup.
Ms Alsalem’s current visit is her first to Australia, but she has previously written letters in defence of Queensland child psychiatrist and gender medicine whistleblower Jillian Spencer, Victorian politician Moira Deeming in her defamation case against former opposition leader John Pesutto, and women’s-only app creator Sall Grover in her court battle against transgender activist Roxanne Tickle.
Touching on legal contests over women-only spaces such as Ms Grover’s, Ms Alsalem called for reform of Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act, amended by the Gillard government in 2013 to remove definitions of “man” and “woman”, while adding new protected attributes of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.
“The Sex Discrimination Act should be revised to make it very clear that discrimination based on sex means biological sex,” Ms Alsalem said.
As opposed to pretend sex, make-believe sex, fake sex.
Ms Alsalem said Australia was “absolutely out of step” with international evidence urging caution in medical treatment of gender dysphoric children.
“Australians should be asking themselves why Australia is so slow after the wealth of recent evidence that has come to light,” she said. “We have had so much data on the harmful consequences of puberty blockers and other medical interventions, and countries that continue to be very, let’s say, trans inclusive, have rolled back the access of children to puberty blockers or medical interventions. The question is actually why hasn’t Australia followed course?”
Because Australia wants to be down with the kids? That’s the only reason I can think of. It’s just all so childish.
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