I would like to extend my warmest greetings to you all, and wish you well in your deliberations concerning a very
significant and difficult issue.
It has become evident to me through reading Position Paper Two:
Parentage, that the VLRC's approach to this matter is from a purely legal and materialistic perspective. Surely being
a government commission established for the purpose of investigating the pros and cons of law reform this should not be a
cause for accusation. But you, being eminent jurists and professors, would be quite aware that law has practical social
consequences that may be widely beneficial to the individual, and hence society at large, or it may be detrimental.
The law powerfully shapes the destiny of the individual for his
or her good, or to his or her harm if it is an unjust law. Law-makers and their advisers do indeed have a mighty responsibility
in their hands, and they have the lives of many people within their control by the laws they make, and do not make.
Judging by the content of Position Paper Two the VLRC has neglected
to account for the factual necessity that a child must receive healthy input from both a mother and a father; that a father's
healthy input is vital to a child's developmental health; that a mother's input is of equal importance; and that neither gender
can adequately substitute the other in providing those inputs for the child, insofar as the nature of the input from each
gender is quite unique from the other, yet both are equally needed as they are complementary. The removal of either
one will always jeopardise the sound developmental health of the child, though how these consequences manifest themselves
may not always be immediate or obvious.
These proposed law reforms favoured by the VLRC will facilitate
the removal of one gender's parental input which will invariably lead to the harm of the child. It is not adequate to
consider a child's needs completely met by ensuring that they are financially secure, that they are granted an inheritance,
etc, etc, though this is very important. Of greater importance is their need for a father who loves them and loves their
mother, and a mother who loves their father. This is the greatest assurance a child can have, and this is the best way
to equip children for life.
A child's family structure and environment, and the nature of the
relationship between each of the family members, will always be the foremost in shaping the way that a child learns to relate
to other people in all manner of relationships. Importantly, this will have a large effect upon how the child will partner
and raise and relate to its own children as an adult.
The first initial relationship a child forms is between its mother
and
father. Prior to the advent of the modern technology of the last thirty years of history, for thousands of years,
the only means of reproduction for humankind was through the sexual intercourse of a man and a woman. Nature has endowed us
physically and psychologically for this as the exclusive means of reproduction, and the child has instinctive psychological
needs that can only be met by this form of relationship.
The proposals of the VLRC (ie, IVF access and adoption rights for
homosexual couples) would be a totally new phenomenon in the vast history of humanity regarding this fundamental aspect of
our human condition: the raising of children. Whether one adheres to the theory of evolution or the theory of creation
by 'intelligent design', one may neutrally question the human psychologies preparedness and ability to adapt to so suddenly
a change to the way one is raised as a child.
There were societal laws and customs in many cultures (and I think
predominantly of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim cultures) to encourage the continuance of the relationship between the
man and woman in the responsibility of raising their children (whether they adhered faithfully to these customs or not is
another matter), and to remain loyal to one another, which had the effect of providing both financial and emotional security
for the children and the mother. There was great wisdom in these customs. Also, a child who knows its birth parents
and is raised by them in a good environment is spared from many aching questions concerning personal identity and the confusion
that can be associated.
An ongoing human problem is that we sometimes don't know what
is good for us and what will better our predicament and general wellbeing. Many of us today have been raised in broken
families where the relationships are broken and unhealthy. Through these experiences our world view develops and our
ability to relate to other people in a wholesome way and to cope with the journey of life is determined. Hence, we have
many people that cannot form healthy relationships marrying and shortly thereafter divorcing, devastating
any children
caught in the middle. We have children that have come from broken families that grow-up into adults whose behavioural
patterns are grossly deformed by their tragic personal experiences because they have not received the necessary inputs that
give vitality to their existence. Our prisons, juvenile detention centres and mental hospitals are full of people such
as these.
It is for these reasons, simplistic as they are, that I oppose the
granting of the right by the State government of single heterosexual women and lesbian couples to access IVF treatment or
to adopt, and I oppose the governments granting of the right of single heterosexual men and gay couples to adopt. I
agree with legal measures that will increase the legal security of children that are parented by a lesbian or gay couple,
but I do not think it is fitting that the birth parent's homosexual partner be legally defined as a parent of that child.
My personal experience and broad observations are my only credentials, but I do not believe that this disqualifies the validity
of my insights. This to me is not a matter of discrimination or prejudice, but rather an acknowledgment, after much
observation and consideration, of the unchanging laws of nature to which man is subject, beyond his ability to repeal or adjust.
Kind regards
Jonathon Cameron
