LITTLEJOHN
Today’s edition of Call Me old-Fashioned comes from surrey, where a gay couple are expecting three babies by three different surrogate mothers within seven months of each other. I’m sorry, I’ll just read that again. No, I was right first time. Two homosexuals have hired three women they found on the internet to produce three children for them. They have already dubbed the babies: the ‘twiplets’.
It helps if you pronounce twiplets with a rasping lisp, like the celebrated sixties comedian Freddie ‘Parrot Face’ davies.
only then can you grasp the absurdity of this bizarre, mercenary arrangement, which is being hailed as an ‘amazing world first’.
This is the crazy world we live in today. Not so long ago a ‘world first’ for Britain would have been the invention of the jet engine or the hovercraft.
Now it’s born-to-order test-tube twiplets with two gay fathers and three this-womb’s-for-hire mothers.
Luke Harris, 50, and daryl Lee, 41, joined several surrogacy websites before they decided to engage 32-year- old Becky Harris ( no relation), a professional surrogate mother. Unfortunately, Becky had already agreed to have a baby for someone else, so she put them in touch with her former sister-in-law Bex Harris.
a few days later, Bex (not to be confused with Becky) passed them on to her best friend Viktoria (with a ‘k’) who was also looking to become a surrogate.
still with me?
ANyway, to cut a long story short, Becky (not Bex) had her baby and then decided she wanted in on the act, after all. so she agreed to have a baby for Luke and daryl, too. The women will each be paid ‘expenses’ of £15,000 for their services and the happy couple will take delivery of the three babies between January and July next year.
Luke and daryl describe the whole process as ‘very much like dating’.
No, it isn’t. There’s no dinner and a movie involved. No champagne and flowers or light foreplay.
This is a commercial transaction for the gratification of five adults. what we’re dealing with here is children as commodities.
For the record, I have no problem with surrogacy, which has helped countless married couples who would otherwise be childless.
I’ve written in favour of gay civil partnerships since before it was fashionable.
and if they want to call it ‘marriage’ it’s fine with me, provided it isn’t used to persecute those with sincerely- held religious beliefs. which, of course, it is. I’m fairly relaxed about gay foster parents, too, if there’s no alternative available. But I still believe that children are best brought up by a man and a woman.
I know we’re all meant to be ‘inclusive’ and are legally obliged to celebrate ‘diversity’ at all times, but I have to confess I’m not comfortable with the recent phenomenon of homosexual couples buying babies to order.
Nor, I suspect, are the vast majority of people in this country, even though they are cowed into keeping their opinions to themselves. But, as Tony soprano used to observe: whatcha gonna do about it?
This menage-a-cinq, however, is a bridge too far. Frankly, I find the whole set-up disgusting.
If you want the full gory details, you’ll find them elsewhere in today’s daily Mail. But it appears that one of the babies is ‘biologically’ Luke’s and the other two are down to daryl.
There hasn’t been anything like it since Trigger, on only Fools and Horses, revealed that on his birth certificate under ‘Father’s Name’, it read: ‘some soldiers.’
Has No oNe stopped to consider what the twiplets are going to make of it when they get older? shouldn’t have thought so for a moment. This is about what’s good for the adults, not for the children.
It’s part of the depressing modern trend towards treating children as fashion accessories, like the latest handbag or breed of designer dog.
This story first appeared in yesterday’s sun newspaper, complete with pictures of the beaming proud parents, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. we’ve come a long way since the sun could put the headline ‘Pulpit Poofters’ on a piece about gay vicars. But even so. Not that long ago, this would have been a job for social services and, probably, the police.
Perhaps this is all part of the postLeveson settlement and the newspapers will soon be full of admiring articles about legions of twiplets being born to conga lines of consenting adults cashing in on their reproductive rights.
Call me old-fashioned, but if this is inclusivity, include me out.