Gay S’porean man loses bid to adopt surrogate son

SINGAPORE: A gay Singaporean man has failed in a bid to formally adopt his biological son fathered via a surrogate in the United States at a cost of US$200,000 (RM816,000).

The man, a doctor in a long-term relationship, first approached authorities about adopting in the city-state but was told that a homosexual couple was unlikely to get permission, according to court documents.

The couple travelled to the United States, where the doctor underwent procedures for in-vitro fertilisation and found a surrogate who agreed to carry his child for US$200,000.

A son was born and as the biological father, the doctor – who has not been identified – was allowed to bring him back to Singapore to live with him. The boy is now four.

The doctor applied to formally adopt the boy in Singapore to “legitimise” their relationship and hopefully secure him Singapore citizenship but a court rejected his bid, according to a judgment released earlier this week.

District Judge Shobha Nair said the doctor and his partner were aware that procedures to help couples have children were available to only married couples in Singapore and that there were no surrogacy services in the city-state.

Gay marriage is not permitted in Singapore. Surrogacy is not explicitly banned although official guidelines prohibit the practice in assisted reproduction centres, according to the Straits Times newspaper.

“The applicant, a medical doctor himself, was acutely aware that the medical procedures undertaken to have a child of his own would not have been possible in Singapore,” said the judge.

“He cannot then come to the courts of the very same jurisdiction to have the acts condoned.”

The child’s welfare was not an issue as he would continue to be cared for by his biological father and he was not stateless as he held US citizenship, the judge said.