Singapore High Court Reverses Terrible Ruling, But Wants To Be Clear That It Isn’t Saying It’s OK To Be Gay

The country has a long way to go for its gay citizens and reproductive rights. But this was a pretty significant positive step.

It’s always good to see really bad rulings — especially those negatively affecting children — get reversed. I wrote about this terrible Singapore case about a year ago. A gay couple, together for over a decade, wanted to have a child together. Unfortunately, Singapore doesn’t allow surrogacy, and you can’t form a legally recognized family in any manner other than through heterosexual marriage. In fact, Singapore is still behind where the U.S. was in 2003 with Lawrence v. Texas, with intercourse between two people of the same sex still being criminalized.

Thankfully, America values some more modern family structures, and in most places, provides a safe place to pursue family building through surrogacy. Because of this environment, the gay Singaporean couple was able to conceive a child in the United States with the help of an egg donor and an American surrogate. One of the men — the genetic father — was shown as the only parent on the child’s U.S. birth certificate. That was because the couple decided that it was legally best to work the single parent angle back home, so as to avoid a direct conflict with Singapore law.

But when the father attempted to adopt his son in Singapore in order to have his son recognized as Singaporean citizen, the court rejected the petition. The court declared that the father was trying to end-run Singapore’s policy against surrogacy, and against parenthood outside of a heterosexual marriage, and it was not going to allow it. The court permitted the child to stay in the father’s custody, but it did not recognize the child as a Singaporean citizen. As I explained in my earlier article, that is a terrifying situation to be in. The child was in a precarious position, and his only quasi-legal family (one of his fathers) had no rights to the country in which he was a citizen (the U.S.) and he had no rights to be in the country where his parents were (Singapore). And technically, he did not have any true legal parents. Scary.

Fortunately, this Monday, the Singapore High Court — which I take to be the Supreme Court of Singapore — reversed the 2017 ruling and permitted the biologically-related father to adopt his son. Phew! At least now the child has a path to Singaporean citizenship, and is not a legal orphan. Unfortunately, the other father, with no genetic relationship, is out of luck for now. But at least the child, now 5 years old, no longer has to jump through the ridiculous hoops he had been going through in order to stay in the country. For that, he had been living under a pass which required him to leave the country, and renew the pass every six months!

Of course, the court couldn’t just issue a new ruling, and state that it was done with the issue. Instead, it wanted to be clear that it was not supporting gay couples or single parenthood. “We attribute significant weight to the concern not to violate the public policy against the formation of same-sex family units on account of its rational connection to the present dispute and the degree to which this policy would be violated should an adoption order be made,” explained the chief justice. “However… we think that neither of these reasons is sufficiently powerful to enable us to ignore the statutory imperative to promote the welfare of the child.” So the High Court didn’t strike down Singapore’s policy against same-sex families, but at least it recognized an implied exception to when the welfare of the child is in direct conflict.

Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Good work, High Court, for doing the right thing for this child and at least one of his parents. The country has a long way to go for its gay citizens and reproductive rights. But this was a pretty significant positive step.


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Ellen TrachmanEllen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, and co-host of the podcast I Want To Put A Baby In You. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.

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