Dr. Lydia Bracken:

I will respond to the question on how we avoid discrimination against children based on the circumstances of their conception. That refers to the very limited situation where, in our new ethical framework for surrogacy, if the criteria are not met, a court might be able to award either parentage or guardianship in a particular situation based on the best interests of the children. That would come down to a policy decision that needs to balance the best interests of children in general by maintaining the integrity of that ethical framework with the best interests of that particular child who is subject to the case that is ongoing. Ultimately the decision will come down to the best interests of that particular child when the court has balanced the various factors. In that way, if guardianship was to be awarded in that particular instance, I would not view that as discrimination against a child, in particular when guardianship, as was already outlined, is really the mechanism that gives parents the ability to make decisions for their children and to undertake that caring role, although I fully appreciate it is not equivalent to parentage in any way. Again, it comes back to the policy decision of how we balance the rights of children in general with the interests of that particular child, which comes down to what our legislation will look like ultimately.