New York woman gets child Jamaican passport, exit permit
Emperor Kioyous is now officially a Jamaican.
The 12-week-old boy's nationality became a tricky question as he was born to a surrogate Indian mother, while his biological parents were an American woman and her Jamaican husband.
Born in the Rama's Institute for Fertility in Hyderabad on December 7, 2011, Emperor Kioyous kicked off a controversy when Indian authorities refused to give him a passport citing various rules. Vexed with the steadfast denial of passport to facilitate his travel to the United States, his mother J. Pearl Linda Vanburen Green abandoned the child in the Regional Passport Office in Secunderabad on January 25 and went away.
Perplexed, the authorities located her later and handed over the baby to her, promising to look into the issue.
Subsequently, Ms. Green, a resident of New York, approached the External Affairs Ministry and, with U.S. consulate intervention, managed to get a Jamaican passport for Emperor Kioyous. She left India along with him on Tuesday morning.
Institute officials said Ms. Green and her Jamaican husband had decided to have a baby through a surrogate mother in Hyderabad.
After completing documentation, the institute took up the medical process and on December 7, 2011, the surrogate mother delivered a baby boy. Immediately after that, Ms. Green flew down to the capital from New York to take custody of the child.
Keywords: biological parentage, Emperor Kioyous, Jamaican, nationality issue
What the RPO's office and Indian authorities put this couple and their child through was a shame and a sin against this young child. Why do they care more about this Jamaican baby than the thousands of Indian babies and children whom I saw begging in the street and scamming for Milk when my Wife and I were in Mumbai last year? If Mrs Green went through all of these paces then she obviously really wanted the child and will most likely be a good mother to him. Resources would be better spent on the countries children.
Adoption is a legal option available to a childless couple. Adopted
child can be the legal heir/child of that couple but can't be their
biological child. Some of such couples who opt for a biological child
go to a surrogate woman i.e. 'renting a womb'. Like taking a premises
on rent under an agreement, the womb of a voluntary woman is taken on
rent under an agreement of mutually accepted terms. An agreement
between parties is a contract. Under the Indian Contract Act a
contract should be a legally enforceable one with a specific relief
for default. The aim/object/terms of agreement should be legal,
practicable and not opposed to moral or public policy. Receiving Human
blood or organ from a voluntary donor or cadaver has legal sanction in
our country. I wonder whether such legal sanction is available for
hiring a womb/woman to give birth a child to a childless couple/man
and what is the liability of the Institution promoting surrogate child
birth.
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