Adoption process ‘outdated’
Media personality Toni Street is reviving calls to change New Zealand’s ‘‘outdated’’ adoption rules as she is yet to adopt her biological son, born in August via a surrogate.
Her social media post about signing a change.org petition to update the Adoption Act caught Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s eye and garnered a promise that ‘‘fixing’’ the Adoption Act was on the cards.
‘‘It is incredibly hard for loving parents to adopt in this country and our vulnerable children deserve better,’’ Street wrote. ‘‘I’ve also experienced first hand how outdated the process is for surrogacy ... we are still waiting to legally adopt our biological son. It is a long, slow, complicated process that doesn’t need to be.’’
Ardern took time to write a comment on Street’s post last week between TV interviews and addressing the United Nations during a trip to New York:
‘‘The adoption act is well over
50 years old and definitely needs fixing. It’s on our work programme!’’
Various groups have called for New Zealand’s 63-year-old adoption laws to be updated for decades.
In 2016, a Human Rights Review Tribunal decision found the Adoption Act 1955 and the Adult Adoption Information Act
1985 discriminated against people based on sex, age, marital status and disability.
Auckland-based Christian Newman and husband Mark Edwards – aka the ‘‘Baby Daddies’’ – started the change.org petition after adopting their son Francis, born via a surrogate in June.
The couple documented their three-year battle to find a surrogate mother on social media.
Despite a costly and demanding process involving counselling for the egg donor, her partner, the surrogate and intending parents, lawyers meetings and a letter and an application to the ETHICS committee, Newman and Edwards were not named on the birth certificate. They had to formally adopt their son.
‘‘We believe the ETHICS approval process should remove any need for adoption and the intending parents should be listed as parents from the day the child is born,’’ the petition says.
‘‘There is no ability for surrogacy agreements to be enforced. If the surrogate decided to keep the child, the law is in favour of the ‘natural parent’ (birth mother), even if they have no biological connection (donor egg and donor sperm),’’ the petition says.
The petition also calls for surrogates to have the option to be compensated for their time, loss of wages or any other costs other than direct costs such as hospital visits and drugs.
The Labour Party policy priorities for the 2017 election included modernising adoption laws: ‘‘The Adoption Act is now over six decades old, and is badly in need of overhaul. To address issues that have arisen in the operation of the existing legislation Labour will review and reform the adoption system in New Zealand.’’
Labour promised it would ask the Law Commission to update its review of the adoption law, and that it would then replace the Adoption Act, ensuring the rights of the child are at the heart of the new legislation.