The Silent Voice in this Debate

"Injustice against the child is the central offence of ‘marriage equality’. We are guilty of stealing a child’s birthright when we institute motherless families and fatherless homes as an ideal in our law.

Why would we do that to a future child? Have we learnt nothing from past government policies that broke bonds of blood and belonging? In 2013 our then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, gave the National Apology for Forced Adoption of babies from their teenage mothers. In a moving speech she confessed our shame for a policy that broke “the most primal and sacred bond there is, the bond between a mother and her baby”.[i] Just three years later we are being asked to support a new policy that will break that primal and sacred bond all over again; for if we institute the ‘marriage’ of two men, we are instituting motherless families. We are saying that future children do not need a mother; we are legislating to guarantee they will not have a mother. We are shallow fools. Which future Prime Minister will have to deliver our heartfelt National Apology to the “motherless generation”?" "Stealing from a Child - The Injustice of Marriage Equality"by David van Gend

Recently, a lady approached me with tears in her eyes. It took her a little while to regain her composure and find the words that needed to be spoken.

Margot* was a victim of forced adoption. Her daughter was removed from her at birth because she was a single mum. Her daughter was raised in a loving home and although she loved her family, she was always, at every moment, acutely aware that something intrinsic to her very being was missing.

Margot recalls the day her daughter made contact. It wasn’t a happy day. Her daughter spoke to her of betrayal and loss. Of being denied her biological reality in preference for an imitation.

Through tears Margot said: “They’re doing it again. Commercial Surrogacy is creating a new generation of children who are taken from their mother. No one spoke up for my baby girl. Please speak up for these children. Don’t let them do this again.”

Australian Equality Party Leader, Jason Tuazon-McCheyne admitted last year on Sky News that commercial surrogacy is absolutely on the agenda for SSM Activists:

https://www.facebook.com/australianmarriageforum/videos/1128823247217237/ 

Call this out and you will be ridiculed by the likes of Aussie comedian Josh Thomas, who sums it up perfectly:

Yes, once SSM is legal, women are reduced to merely a ‘uterus.’ It’s a win for misogyny, but not marriage.

And what we’ve learnt from other countries where SSM is legal, is that commercial surrogacy is the next logical step. After all, the right to “marry and found a family” is a compound right. So once two men or two women are granted the “right to found a family,” unwanted childlessness becomes discrimination and an injustice. What follows is Baby Markets where women and children are sold as commodities.

“Senator Wong may well have a partner and that partner may well have borne children but that partner is not “the mother” of Ms Wong’s children. Unless every biologist in the world is wrong, the partner is the mother of those children and while they may have been adopted by Ms Wong they were fathered by a male.” Piers Akerman

A grave injustice is perpetrated when an adult pursues a biological connection with a child and in so doing, denies that child the very biological connection they so desperately crave.

We MUST be allowed to call that out for what it is.

For the children of Sperm Donors, like Geradline Hewitt, who were told they “should just be grateful to be alive.”

For the children of surrogates who will never hear their mother’s voice. Never experience that most primal of bonds – the bond between mother and child.

And for those children who will be denied the right to even know who their biological parents are. Who will not have access to their family’s medical history, biological history or cultural history because it will hurt the feelings of the grownups who selfishly seek to call them their own.

For these children we cannot remain silent.

They need to know that someone spoke up for them when they didn’t have a voice. When those who seek to deny them their very identity call us to be silent, we will speak. And we will be heard. For them.

In the words of poet Nayyirah Waheed:

‘no’ might make them angry,
but,
it will make you free.

If no one has ever told you, your freedom is
more important than their anger.

*Margot’s name has been changed to protect her identity and that of her child

[i] Wroe D., “Amid the madness, Gillard shines with mother apology,” The Sydney Morning Herald, March 22, 2013, http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/amid-the-madness-gillard-shines-with-mother-apology-20130321-2gixj.html

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