Transcript - Stateline Victoria - "Government considering widespread remorms to the state's IVF and surrogancy laws" by Cheryl Hall
JACKIE ROBINSON, MOTHER: What better proof do you need, apart from looking at them. You can tell they're certainly --
BRETT ROBINSON, FATHER: If you look at them, you can tell they're ours.
JACKIE ROBINSON: Certainly Brett's.
BRETT ROBINSON: Chad's more like me and Todd’s more like you.
CHERYL HALL, REPORTER: Brett and Jackie Robinson are the proud parents of twin boys, Chad and Todd. Using their own eggs and sperm, the boys were conceived through IVF. But as Jackie Robinson has explained to her sons, they were carried by a friend who acted as a surrogate mother.
JACKIE ROBINSON: Belinda, bless her, she was absolutely fantastic in what she's done for us. Her whole idea was just to help us out to become a family and she did a fantastic job and she said that's where it stops. When the boys are born, they're ours and for us to raise as we see fit.
BRETT ROBINSON: We can't thank her enough for what they’ve done. That's great. We're very happy.
CHERYL HALL: But the complications began even before the boys were born.
JACKIE ROBINSON: We were originally under the impression that Brett was going to be allowed to be on the birth certificate and we thought with that, we can later have me added. That didn't worry us, just so long as one of us was on the birth certificate to start with was great. Then we found out, after Belinda was already pregnant, or carrying the boys, that they had to be a legally married couple to even go into the process, so from that day on Mark's name is on it and neither of us got a look in.
CHERYL HALL: Under Victorian law it's the surrogate mother, the woman who gives birth, who is listed as the mother on the birth certificate, and her husband is listed as the father. It's created endless problems for Jackie and Brett Robinson, who have no legal parenting rights over their sons.
JACKIE ROBINSON: I actually found out when one of my boys was going in to have his tonsils out and I was just discussing with the nurse as we were carrying him in to be anaesthetized. I was saying to the nurse the size of the boys and she said, “You must have been huge,” and I said, “I didn’t actually carry them,” and I explained to her that we had a wonderful surrogate who did that for us. She said, "Do you realise you can't admit your boy in the hospital? You have to have the surrogate's consent because she's the legal mother." That really spun me out then. I thought, “That can't be right, they’re my boys.” If we ever need to apply for passports, we have to get Belinda's consent on almost anything, which is not right. It's crazy. The laws are crazy.
CHERYL HALL: There's no doubt the Robinsons are the biological parents of Chad and Todd. They've even had DNA tests to prove it, but it changes nothing. The legal limbo created by the current laws isn't limited to the traditional family unit. It also affects a growing community of gay and lesbian parents who have found ways to have children. Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise spent $150,000 in the United States to have baby Ethan, through an anonymous egg donor and a surrogate mother.
JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE, PARENT: Before we had Ethan we socialised with other gay dads so we got a lot of ideas from them and got a lot of advice from them as well.
CHERYL HALL: What's been the hardest bit?
JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE: Initially probably waking up (indistinct) but he's being very good to us and he's sleeping through the night for the last 1.5 months.
CHERYL HALL: One of them is the biological father; the surrogate mother is listed on the birth certificate as unknown. But the bureaucratic problems started once they arrived back in Melbourne.
RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE, PARENT: One of us is the biological father of Ethan and one of us is the non-biological father of Ethan. The non-biological father has no parenting rights in Australia. It presents issues when applying for a passport. It could present issues if Ethan gets sick and needs medical treatment in hospital. We could be presented with problems there. But the biggest fear is if the biological father does die, Ethan actually has no parent at all, no relative at all under the law, even though he has another father.
CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise are planning to be the first couple on the City of Yarra's new relationship register when it opens on 7 May. They hope the council register and the one being set up by the State Government will inadvertently help the non-biological parent to adopt Ethan by providing evidence a relationship exists. But that's a move that will be opposed by the powerful Christian lobby. They support the relationship register, as long as it doesn't mimic marriage and doesn't open the door to adoption or parenting rights for same sex couples.
ROB WARD, AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIAN LOBBY: The register doesn't allow that. That would be a consequential change to other acts like the Adoption Act and so on. We feel the best interests of the child might not be served in that situation.
CHERYL HALL: Why not?
ROB WARD: The evidence seems to be pretty clear that the best interests of a child are served by having a mother and a father present, and that would be the ideal that we would be aiming for.
CHERYL HALL: If the State Government follows the interim recommendations of the Law Reform Commission, Jackie and Brett Robinson will be recognised as parents, with the surrogate's consent. But Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise face bigger hurdles. Under the interim recommendations, they could have a child through altruistic surrogacy, but not commercial surrogacy. The Christian lobby is opposing both.
ROB WARD: I would say that there is a great deal of sympathy for infertile couples - I’m talking here married, heterosexual couples. Let me make that distinction really clear. There is a great deal of sympathy for people who are infertile. I’m not quite sure that we're ready to rush down the road and to open the door, if you like, to surrogacy for all. Certainly not for homosexual couples.
CHERYL HALL: Can you say what you think would be best for the child in this situation?
ROB WARD: Firstly for it not to have happened. This couple, and perhaps others like them, are making a deliberate choice, a conscious decision, to bring about a child that doesn't have proper parents in the normal sense. One wonders, down the track, what the future for that child might be, how confused that child might be about who its mother was, who its father is.
CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise believe the community is ready to accept gay and lesbian families.
RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE: We’ve had nothing but positive experiences. The community looks at a family and it doesn't matter what shape it is, and if it's happy and they see the kids are looked after and loved, that's what matters.
: What better proof do you need, apart from looking at them. You can tell they're certainly --
BRETT ROBINSON: If you look at them, you can tell they're ours.
JACKIE ROBINSON: Certainly Brett's.
BRETT ROBINSON: Chad's more like me and Todd’s more like you.
CHERYL HALL: Brett and Jackie Robinson are the proud parents of twin boys, Chad and Todd. Using their own eggs and sperm, the boys were conceived through IVF. But as Jackie Robinson has explained to her sons, they were carried by a friend who acted as a surrogate mother.
JACKIE ROBINSON: Belinda, bless her, she was absolutely fantastic in what she's done for us. Her whole idea was just to help us out to become a family and she did a fantastic job and she said that's where it stops. When the boys are born, they're ours and for us to raise as we see fit.
BRETT ROBINSON: We can't thank her enough for what they’ve done. That's great. We're very happy.
CHERYL HALL: But the complications began even before the boys were born.
JACKIE ROBINSON: We were originally under the impression that Brett was going to be allowed to be on the birth certificate and we thought with that, we can later have me added. That didn't worry us, just so long as one of us was on the birth certificate to start with was great. Then we found out, after Belinda was already pregnant, or carrying the boys, that they had to be a legally married couple to even go into the process, so from that day on Mark's name is on it and neither of us got a look in.
CHERYL HALL: Under Victorian law it's the surrogate mother, the woman who gives birth, who is listed as the mother on the birth certificate, and her husband is listed as the father. It's created endless problems for Jackie and Brett Robinson, who have no legal parenting rights over their sons.
JACKIE ROBINSON: I actually found out when one of my boys was going in to have his tonsils out and I was just discussing with the nurse as we were carrying him in to be anaesthetized. I was saying to the nurse the size of the boys and she said, “You must have been huge,” and I said, “I didn’t actually carry them,” and I explained to her that we had a wonderful surrogate who did that for us. She said, "Do you realise you can't admit your boy in the hospital? You have to have the surrogate's consent because she's the legal mother." That really spun me out then. I thought, “That can't be right, they’re my boys.” If we ever need to apply for passports, we have to get Belinda's consent on almost anything, which is not right. It's crazy. The laws are crazy.
CHERYL HALL: There's no doubt the Robinsons are the biological parents of Chad and Todd. They've even had DNA tests to prove it, but it changes nothing. The legal limbo created by the current laws isn't limited to the traditional family unit. It also affects a growing community of gay and lesbian parents who have found ways to have children. Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise spent $150,000 in the United States to have baby Ethan, through an anonymous egg donor and a surrogate mother.
JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE: Before we had Ethan we socialised with other gay dads so we got a lot of ideas from them and got a lot of advice from them as well.
CHERYL HALL: What's been the hardest bit?
JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE: Initially probably waking up (indistinct) but he's being very good to us and he's sleeping through the night for the last 1.5 months.
CHERYL HALL: One of them is the biological father; the surrogate mother is listed on the birth certificate as unknown. But the bureaucratic problems started once they arrived back in Melbourne.
RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE: One of us is the biological father of Ethan and one of us is the non-biological father of Ethan. The non-biological father has no parenting rights in Australia. It presents issues when applying for a passport. It could present issues if Ethan gets sick and needs medical treatment in hospital. We could be presented with problems there. But the biggest fear is if the biological father does die, Ethan actually has no parent at all, no relative at all under the law, even though he has another father.
CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise are planning to be the first couple on the City of Yarra's new relationship register when it opens on 7 May. They hope the council register and the one being set up by the State Government will inadvertently help the non-biological parent to adopt Ethan by providing evidence a relationship exists. But that's a move that will be opposed by the powerful Christian lobby. They support the relationship register, as long as it doesn't mimic marriage and doesn't open the door to adoption or parenting rights for same sex couples.
ROB WARD: The register doesn't allow that. That would be a consequential change to other acts like the Adoption Act and so on. We feel the best interests of the child might not be served in that situation.
CHERYL HALL: Why not?
ROB WARD: The evidence seems to be pretty clear that the best interests of a child are served by having a mother and a father present, and that would be the ideal that we would be aiming for.
CHERYL HALL: If the State Government follows the interim recommendations of the Law Reform Commission, Jackie and Brett Robinson will be recognised as parents, with the surrogate's consent. But Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise face bigger hurdles. Under the interim recommendations, they could have a child through altruistic surrogacy, but not commercial surrogacy. The Christian lobby is opposing both.
ROB WARD: I would say that there is a great deal of sympathy for infertile couples - I’m talking here married, heterosexual couples. Let me make that distinction really clear. There is a great deal of sympathy for people who are infertile. I’m not quite sure that we're ready to rush down the road and to open the door, if you like, to surrogacy for all. Certainly not for homosexual couples.
CHERYL HALL: Can you say what you think would be best for the child in this situation?
ROB WARD: Firstly for it not to have happened. This couple, and perhaps others like them, are making a deliberate choice, a conscious decision, to bring about a child that doesn't have proper parents in the normal sense. One wonders, down the track, what the future for that child might be, how confused that child might be about who its mother was, who its father is.
CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise believe the community is ready to accept gay and lesbian families.
RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE: We’ve had nothing but positive experiences. The community looks at a family and it doesn't matter what shape it is, and if it's happy and they see the kids are looked after and loved, that's what matters.
[Link: ABC Transcript]
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