AdoptionBlogger.Com

Canadian Judge: Child punished for parent's illegal activities.

Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Act (Federal) came into effect in 2004 and declares that it is an offense to offer payment to a surrogate mother and all surrogate contracts are illegal. 

A canadian couple located a surrogate on the internet and the surrogate agreed to be artificially inseminated with the intended father's sperm for a fee of $20,000 to cover her "expenses and drawbacks" of being pregnant.  When the baby girl was born, the surrogate mother's name was omitted from the birth certificate and the intended father's name inserted with the plan that the intended father's wife adopt the child. 

Judge DuBois declared "this child does not have a right to a maternal relationship at any price."  Hence, the child does not have a legally recognizable mother.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=1382832

West Virginia: Child's "advocate" argues child should be adopted by a family with a "mother" and "father"

child's "advocate" argues that the child's "best interst" calls for the child to be removed from her home consisting of same-sex parents and placed with a home where the child can have a "legal mother" and "legal father". 

case now before the west virginia supreme court.

main issues:

1.  west virginia's statute that only a married husband and wife OR a single person can adopt; and

2.  whether the fact that the child is raised by same-sex parents is against the child's best intersts.

    http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=54200

NY Court of Appeals: Parents cannot have deceased son's sperm

son battling cancer deposited his semen with a sperm bank and signed a contract indicating that the samples should be destroyed if he died.  He died and his parents sought the sperm samples to use as part of a surrogacy process to have grandchildren.  the sperm bank refused to honor the request in light of the contract and that the samples were not prescreened and could be a danger to the public health.  in a case of first impression, the court sided with the sperm bank and denied access noting that the state law requiring screening of the sample could no longer be accomplished because the son was deceased.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ivZIgSpAA6LASFtgXMZrwbyBO1gQD96MRO8G0