A gay man in Singapore was rejected permission to adopt his biological child in Singapore.
The man, who’s a doctor, first attempted to adopt a child in Singapore but was denied because of his gay relationship.
Then, he went to the US and paid a local woman $200,000 dollars to act as the surrogate and help him give birth to a baby boy.
The couple returned to Singapore with new baby in hand, which was legal due to their biological link, and they started the journey of legally adopting the boy.
Now after four years later, their adoption application has been rejected by District Judge Shobha Nair.
As the Strait Times reports, Nair pointed out on Tuesday (December 26) that Singaporean law doesn’t condone surrogacy and that the man has been going around the law in all his efforts for a child.
In court, the judge said the doctor should be “acutely aware that the medical procedures undertaken to have a child of his own would not have been possible in Singapore".
"He cannot then come to the courts of the very same jurisdiction to have the acts condoned."
That said, the deed has been done and the child was born. Nair didn’t want to deny the boy his father and says the doctor can continue to raise the child.
That said, being able to raise the boy doesn’t mean the government will officially recognize the boy as a citizen of Singapore. Instead, the child will remain an American citizen.
"This application is in reality an attempt to obtain a desired result – that is, formalizing the parent-child relationship in order to obtain certain benefits such as citizenship rights, by walking through the back door of the system when the front door was firmly shut."
"It does not further the interest of the four-year-old child. A four-year-old child will thrive anywhere in the hands of loving people."
