COUPLE REFUSES TO RECOGNIZE SURROGATE AS MOTHER

Says law that defines birth woman as child’s mother is “antiquated”  VANCOUVER, June 28, 2002 (LSN.ca) – A Surrey couple who used a surrogate mother to obtain a child for themselves has asked the B.C. Supreme Court to strip the surrogate mother from their son’s birth certificate. “All I want,” says Terri Rypkema, “is a birth certificate with my son’s name on it and my name and my husband’s name,” and “I want to be able to do it without adopting him.”  They claim that the Vital Statistics Act, which defines a child’s mother as the woman who physically gives birth to the child, is “antiquated,” and that such a natural definition ignores the “modern fact,” writes Canadian Press, “that the woman who gives birth isn’t necessarily the woman who conceived it.” Media reports said nothing of the surrogate mother’s views.  The story was carried in the Victoria Times Colonist, June 28, 2002, p. A4