Referendum is not about commercial surrogacy

Margaret Hickey wrote (Irish Examiner, April 10) that the upcoming referendum on marriage equality “is about rejecting the 21st century cruelty that denies a child a mother or a father, through surrogacy”. Perhaps Ms Hickey is getting the chance to vote in a different referendum to the rest of us?

I would certainly vote to ban commercial surrogacy, if given the chance in May, but I won’t be able to because that is not what the referendum is about.

Indeed, surrogacy isn’t an exclusively gay issue, as straight couples use surrogates too and the importance of maintaining relationships with natural parents applies just as equally to children of straight, single and separated parents as it does to children of gay parents.

How we vote in May will not change the fact that gay people have children because that is not what the referendum is about.

Despite all the attempts by the ‘no’ campaign to muddy the waters, the referendum is quite simple — do you think the civil laws of this country should apply to everyone equally or not? I do not know how anybody, in all conscience, could vote anything other than ‘yes’.

Kay Chalmers

Well Road

Douglas

Cork