Two Aussie Dads Stuck in Canada After Surrogate Baby Passport Bungle

Two Australian fathers are forced to remain in Canada after being at the centre of a bureaucratic and legal fight while trying to bring their newborn son home to Australia.

Kyle and Kent Stewart are legally married in Canada and became first-time fathers last year when they welcomed baby Kaden through a surrogate. However, their marriage is not legally recognised in Australia.

One of them is the biological father of the baby and under Canadian law, the pair are both recognised as parents on the child’s birth certificate, and they were able to legally obtain Australian citizenship for Kaden. However, under Australia’s current laws, it was difficult to get a passport for baby Kaden.

Kyle told News Corp. that they were going to celebrate Kaden’s first birthday in Australia, but things started to become complicated for the couple. “We thought everything was going to plan and all the indications were showing there wouldn’t be any issues in getting him a passport,” Kent said.

Under British Columbia, a surrogate has no parental rights over the baby, but in Australia, the Passport Office adopts the Family Law Act and considers that she is a parent.

The office requires the surrogate’s consent to issue a passport, even though the surrogate is not a resident nor citizen of Australia.

Under Canadian law, after the child’s birth, the surrogate signed a statutory declaration revoking any parental rights, rendering her as not a legal parent to the infant.

However, since the surrogate is not Kaden’s legal parent, and has revoked any parental responsibility for him, she doesn’t want to sign the form.

The couple’s Australian lawyer, Stephen Page, said that needing the surrogate’s consent is “an extraordinary proposition.”

“If you have two parents, as we have here, and there is no court order in Australia saying that they don’t have parental responsibility, [the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] has this idea that there is a third person who has parental responsibility,” he said.

Since Australian law does not recognise the relationship of two men and therefore the Passport Office is unable to insert the surrogate as a second parent.

News Corp. reported that Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop wouldn’t comment directly on the Stewarts’ case, and instead released a statement through her spokeswoman outlining the Passport Office’s interpretation of the law.

“Under Australian Law, a birth mother is considered to be a person with parental responsibility for a child, whether or not she has a biological link to the child or is named on the child’s birth certificate,” the spokeswoman said.

“This means that, in surrogacy cases, the surrogate mother’s consent is required for the issue of a passport to the child.”

With this, there seems to be no near-term resolution for the couple any time soon and baby Kaden cannot travel to Australia to meet his extended family.

Source: Au.news.yahoo.com