Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are talking about the safety of children, so let us remember the name of the heading of this section: "Safety of children". We are talking about the regulatory authority's oversight of any proposed surrogacy journeys. No embryo has been created at this stage. Nothing like that has happened at this stage when this level of screening of proposed parents occurs. So, it happens. I am not objecting to the section. I am not saying anything other than to note that just because you have a fertility issue should not put all your character and everything about you up for grabs and having to be proven, as the AHRRA will require. At no point have I objected to this, the officials will confirm. I have asked why we are doing this and the answer I got was that it is best international practice. I have completely and utterly accepted this. However, I am noting that infertility suddenly puts you in a place where you have to justify who you are and what you are and your capability to be a parent, just because the natural functioning does not happen, whereas we have thousands of families giving birth to children where they are not in that place of wanting to give as much and to be as much, but that is a whole other day's question.

The example given by Senator Mullen tells us everything about the intent here. He mentioned the well-heeled, single male. That goes to the actual philosophical objections going on here. The philosophical objection is about same-sex male couples and gay men availing of surrogacy. It goes back to this. During the marriage equality referendum, the posters around Dublin were warning that this was going to lead us down the road of surrogacy. There were obscene posters saying there would be children who did not have mothers. Actually, they have two fathers who are fantastic and love and cherish their children just as much. The Senator's real objection is about single males accessing the service. He makes the broad characterisation that anybody who becomes a surrogate is poor and needs him to stand up and support them. The inaccuracy of this broad characterisation that every surrogate is a poor woman is absolutely and utterly shocking. Not only that, even if some women are poor, that is to presume that poverty denies you the ability to have any agency or any decision making over your body, that being in a poor position suddenly means such people do not have a say. It is a stereotype of ignorance and being easily persuadable. It is a stereotype of women who may experience poverty, but that is not the surrogacy and surrogate mother experience.

I reject this characterisation of surrogates, of intending parents and, consequently, the arising stigma for the children born of those arrangements. How dare they? We had this debate last week. Men are very capable of being fantastic parents all by themselves. They have the same inherent desire to be a parent, to procreate and to have a child and to love, cherish and treasure that child. That is what is going to the heart of this. I reject the characterisation of me. That is all absolute rubbish: infuriating rubbish, but rubbish nonetheless. It is playing the man and not the ball, which is what is going on a lot of the time with Senator Mullen. There are extensive powers under this legislation. The safety of children is front and centre all of the time, just as it is with intending parents.