This blog post is an excerpt from Bench Press in the January/February 2012 issue of LawNow magazine. To view the magazine and subscribe please go to www.lawnow.org.
A Court of King’s Bench justice in Saskatchewan recently ruled that a woman who gave birth to a baby girl in 2009 is not the child’s mother.
The child was conceived through sperm from one partner in a same-sex marriage and an ovum from an anonymous donor. “Mary” carried the baby to term. The same sex couple and Mary asked the province’s Registrar of Vital Statistics to remove the birth mother’s name from the child’s birth certificate.
Justice Jacelyn Ann Ryan-Froslie agreed.
She wrote: “It is clear from the definition of ‘mother’ contained in the Vital Statistics Act 2009, that Mary, the gestational carrier, is Sarah’s mother for the purposes of that act as she is the woman from whom Sarah was delivered. Naming her as Sarah’s mother on the registration of live birth raises a presumption that she is also Sarah’s biological mother. In this case, I am satisfied that on a balance of probabilities, that Mary, the gestational carrier, is not Sarah’s biological mother. I am also satisfied that neither (John nor Bill) nor Mary ever intended that Mary would assume any parental rights or obligations with respect to Sarah. As such, a declaration that Mary is not Sarah’s mother is warranted.”