An Unnamed Australian Man's story
What happens when a surrogate father sexually abuses his surrogate twins?
A man who brought his surrogate twin infant daughters to Australia to sexually abuse them and then shared footage of them engaging in sex with pedophile friends online was found guilty in 2016 and jailed for 22 years. The man was found to have spent $44,000 to have the twins conceived overseas, with the clear intention of sexually exploiting them. He began sexually abusing them when they were 27 days old.
The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty in a Victorian county court to 37 charges, including 20 counts of incest and two of child trafficking. Evidence presented against him included almost 17,000 images and videos of child abuse, including almost 300 images and videos featuring the twin girls, who were born in Asia using a donor egg from the Ukraine. The man, who was known on various child abuse forums by the name Candy, had told other members about the impending surrogate births and his intention to abuse the girls.
The offenses against the surrogate twins followed four years of the man abusing his nieces, who were drugged so he could film himself engaging in sex acts with them. He began abusing his nieces when they were four and six. He abused his surrogate infant daughters weekly for eight months, before he was arrested.
The twins – who are now in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services – were abused while the man fed, bathed, and changed them.
In sentencing, Judge Susan Cohen said the man’s morally repugnant offenses struck at the core of the joys and privilege of bringing children into the world.
“You deliberately entered into an agreement whereby your own children would be born and brought to Australia [for sexual exploitation],” she said. “As newborns they could not have been more vulnerable or dependent upon you.”
The judge said the man had expressed relief after police raided his house. The man said he was sick and sad, and told police: “I love them so much. I don’t know why I did it.”
Sources for this story
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“I think commercial surrogacy should be banned completely. They're putting women at risk without even telling them the risks. There is no such thing as informed consent in this situation. There is no way to tell any young woman, so that she could actually understand the risks. The research isn't even being done to determine the risks. There's funding for fertility, but no funding to do research on the risks. It's a multi-billion dollar industry to make designer babies. There is all that funding. But no research on women like me who were surrogates. " |
Brooke's doctors and the fertility industry surely knew that as a surrogate who had already carried her own three children to term followed by five surrogate babies, Brooke was at high risk of grave injury. But in the end, none of them deemed Brooke's life, and those of the infants she carried, to be worthy of any news coverage or more than the $7,000 raised by GoFundMe to cover the cost of her funeral. --From Brooke Brown’s Story: What happens when surrogacy kills you.
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Right now, young women agreeing to egg donation cannot give informed consent because information about long-term health risks doesn’t exist. It didn’t exist for my daughter who passed away, and it doesn’t exist for anyone now. Until the health consequences are known and understood, it would be unconscionable to legalize commercial surrogacy’ given that it will greatly increase the demand for donated eggs, and risk the lives and health of many more young women.
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I don’t think surrogacy should be legal, when even the most common of serious and debilitating health risks isn’t required to be disclosed. I don’t think surrogacy should be legal, when much-needed health care for longer-term pregnancy-related harms is not required or made available. The lives of too many perfectly healthy and fit young mothers and wives are forever compromised or irreparably harmed, not only to their own detriment, but to the detriment of their families who need them. I suffer deeply, every single day, as do my children and my husband. No amount of money was worth this cost to us all. |