Gary Powell is the European Special Consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture, California. He is a UK conservative political activist and longstanding advocate for gay and lesbian equality, and he opposes the modern western LGBT+ movement for its adoption of extreme gender ideology, its failure to represent the mainstream LGB community, and for its lack of respect for the rights of women, children, people of religious faith, and dissenting LGB people. For several years he ran a national campaign to improve public administration complaints procedures. Gary graduated with First Class Honours from Oxford University, where his Philosophy tutors included the Rt Hon Baroness Mary Warnock, a specialist in reproductive ethics whose Inquiry led to the UK Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985 and the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. He is an original signatory of the Stop Surrogacy Now Statement and argues for a ban on all forms of surrogacy for all people, regardless of sexual orientation.
The UK Supreme Court has upheld a claim for a woman to pursue four commercial surrogacy pregnancies in California at the expense of the UK taxpayer. This Judgment is extraordinary in that commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK, and two Supreme Court Judges dissented from the Judgment on the grounds that it is against public policy for a court to award damages to enable conduct abroad that is illegal in the UK.
Date posted: 2020-06-13
As gay people, we cannot insist on the right to carry out practices that harm the rights of others. Rather than being an LGBT rights issue, surrogacy is a women's rights issue and a children's rights issue; and like the sale of human organs, it is not an activity that should be promoted or indeed permitted.
Date posted: 2019-07-09