Law.com (subscription required):
The New Jersey Supreme Court heard oral argument on March 1 in a surrogate-mother suit, The Matter of the Parentage of a Child by T.J.S. and A.L.S., and in so doing, exposed the case's greatest weakness.
The class of women with the greatest rights at risk was unrepresented. While the parties and the Court pondered whether the justices could change statutory law, or declare it unconstitutional, the central issue was whether and when the fundamental constitutional liberty interests and state's rights of the unrepresented legal mothers could be terminated.
The birth mothers were not heard from. Of such stuff, bad law is made.
... The wife in T.J.S. seeks to cut off the rights of the legal mother, which are protected as an intrinsic fundamental right under the state and federal constitutions. The sperm donor, on the other hand, has no rights statutory or constitutional. T.J.S.'s wife has no rights either, by statute or either constitution.
The fact that the state does not recognize rights in an anonymous sperm donor who has no statutory or constitutional rights and who has no relationship with the child, does not compel the state to terminate the rights of a mother who has statutory and constitutional rights in the relationship she has with the child she carried for nine months under concepts of equal protection.
The two are simply NOT similarly situated. That was the conclusion of the Baby M Court.
The sad irony of T.J.S.'s argument is that it is made in the name of women's rights, while attempting to destroy well-established constitutional rights of women who went unrepresented.
5 Comments
Am I the only one who had trouble understanding this passage?
Someone should re-write it using the following definitions. I understand that for emotional reasons and day-to-day practical reasons we use terms "mother," "father," "parent," instead of the legal terms "adoptive mother," etc...., but when it comes to discussing LEGAL rights, we should use LEGAL terms.
I am flabbergasted at the way that liberals are constantly attempting to re-define terms to satisfy their selfish desires with no concern for children. And the stupid masses, blinded by emotion and ignorant of the importance of non-ambiguity in legal terms, go along with it.
mother = woman whose genetic material contributed to conception of child. Egg donors are mothers.
father = man whose genetic material contributed to conception of child. Sperm donors are fathers.
parent = mother or father of a child.
"non-maternal carrier" - woman, other than the mother, who carries developing baby until birth.
adoptive mother - woman, other than mother, who contracts for legal responsibility of child.
adoptive father - man, other than father,
adoptive parent - man or woman who contracts for legal responsibility of child.
Apparently the property, er, child, has no rights either.
Behold, the result when adult desires are given the freedom to stretch the boundaries of Normal. And this case doesn't even address the Mengele-esque reproductive science that will be carried out in attempts to make babies who have three equally-genetic parents (not just replacing one mitochondria to avoid passing on debilitating genetic diseases) because the gay community wants the ability to create families in which both partners are biological parents of their children.
The people arguing to undercut the parental rights of the surrogate were, essentially, working to threaten the parental rights of all other biological mothers. I wonder if they knew this.
Interesting that this court basically undercut the gender neutrality idea pervasive in the marriage redefinition movement, i.e. that men and women are not different in any meaningful way, including in the area of parentage. The court found that sperm donors and surrogate mothers are not similarly situated due to fundamental sex differences (“the child she carried for nine months”).
Lesbian and gay couples are not even similarly situated with each other in terms of parentage, let alone with opposite-sex couples. And yet, some demand that we lump all three relationships into one legal framework…or try to.
As I understand it, a surrogate is a woman who agrees in writing, to carry and birth a child for someone else, and to surrender that child to the other party in the contract, in exchange for a mutually agreed upon sum of money. The child is never hers, despite her having gestated it. For her to claim that the child is hers would be like me working on an assembly line at Ford Motors and then trying to claim ownership of every Mustang that rolled off that line. .