Children’s Rights

AN ARGUMENT AGAINST SURROGACY

P1. Surrogacy creates confusion as to who are the child’s parents

P2. Anything which creates confusion as to who are the child’s parents compromises children’s rights to know and be cared for by their parents

C. Therefore surrogacy compromises children’s rights to know and be cared for by their parents

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CONSERVATIVE COMMENTARY

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (the world’s most widely ratified human rights treaty in history):

The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-text#

Surrogacy introduces different types of parents which creates confusion as to who are the child’s parents. Imagine Theresa and Tom commission Debbie to carry a child using Abby’s egg and Adam’s sperm. Now imagine they all divorce and remarry before the baby is born and the agreement was found to be null and void. How many of the 16 people involved have some potential parental rights/responsibilities related to the child?

1. Theresa
2. Theresa’s husband
3. Tom
4. Tom’s wife
5. Debbie
6. Debbie’s husband
7. Debbie’s ex-husband 
8. Debbie’s ex-husband’s wife 
9. Abby
10. Abby’s husband
11. Abby’s ex-husband
12. Abby’s ex-husband’s wife
13. Adam
14. Adam’s wife
15. Adam’s ex-wife
16. Adam’s ex-wife’s husband