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“Rules are thicker than blood” (January 13th) derided Singapore’s norms on what constitutes a family as “Victorian”. Our values and social norms on what makes for a stable family unit are conservative and shape the government’s policies and rules on adoption. They differ from today’s Western norms, which are historically recent and by no means uncontested, even in Western societies. Singaporeans will determine their own pace of any change in family values.
A push for rapid social change, especially on contentious moral issues, risks polarising society and producing unintended results. In Singapore nearly all children are born and raised in wedlock, starkly different from what now happens in the West. We make no claim to know which values are best for every society. The Economist may think Singapore is quaint and old-fashioned, but time will tell if a cautious approach to social change is wiser.
FOO CHI HSIA
High commissioner for Singapore
London
****
IT SOUNDS like something out of a Lewis Carroll novel. First, a father had to petition the courts to be allowed to adopt his own biological son, who was born in America with the help of a surrogate, and thus was not automatically considered his child under Singaporean law. Then on December 26th a judge ruled that the adoption would not be allowed. That, in turn, prevents the child, who lives in Singapore with his Singaporean father and his father’s Singaporean partner, from becoming a Singaporean citizen. Instead each year his parents will have to apply for temporary leave for him to remain. As well as being topsy-turvy, the case feels like a scene from “Alice in Wonderland” in another way: the Singaporean government’s attitude to families is remarkably Victorian.
The two men involved in the case did not have a child lightly. After they had been a couple for 15 years and had lived together for nine, they looked into adopting, but found that an “unwritten policy” barred gay couples from adopting in Singapore (as written ones did until recently in much of the West). What is more, an unwed, heterosexual man can only adopt a boy. After much research, the couple paid $200,000 to an American firm to help them conceive abroad. “We thought that in starting our family, the best way was surrogacy,” says one.
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But under Singaporean law, any child born to an unmarried couple (including all gay ones) is deemed illegitimate. That means the parents do not receive a “baby bonus” from the state or certain tax breaks accorded to the parents of legitimate children. The child does not automatically inherit anything when both parents die. The family will have a harder time gaining access to public housing. And illegitimate children born abroad to a Singaporean father are not automatically entitled to Singaporean citizenship, depriving them of yet more benefits.
In her ruling, which the couple plan to appeal, Shobha Nair, the judge, tut-tutted about “the use of money to encourage the movement of life from one hand to another” (payment for adoption is illegal in Singapore). But many heterosexual Singaporean couples conceive using foreign surrogates each year, although they may attempt to conceal this from the authorities.
Ms Nair also excoriated the pair for trying to find a way to start a family, or for “walking through the back door of the system when the front door was firmly shut”. She claimed that “it is no place of this Court to dictate to the applicant what a family unit ought to…look like,” even as her ruling firmly laid out that the ideal family unit, in the eyes of the Singaporean state, entails the marriage of a man to a woman.
A push for rapid social change, especially on contentious moral issues, risks polarising society and producing unintended results. In Singapore nearly all children are born and raised in wedlock, starkly different from what now happens in the West. We make no claim to know which values are best for every society. The Economist may think Singapore is quaint and old-fashioned, but time will tell if a cautious approach to social change is wiser.
FOO CHI HSIA
High commissioner for Singapore
London
****
IT SOUNDS like something out of a Lewis Carroll novel. First, a father had to petition the courts to be allowed to adopt his own biological son, who was born in America with the help of a surrogate, and thus was not automatically considered his child under Singaporean law. Then on December 26th a judge ruled that the adoption would not be allowed. That, in turn, prevents the child, who lives in Singapore with his Singaporean father and his father’s Singaporean partner, from becoming a Singaporean citizen. Instead each year his parents will have to apply for temporary leave for him to remain. As well as being topsy-turvy, the case feels like a scene from “Alice in Wonderland” in another way: the Singaporean government’s attitude to families is remarkably Victorian.
The two men involved in the case did not have a child lightly. After they had been a couple for 15 years and had lived together for nine, they looked into adopting, but found that an “unwritten policy” barred gay couples from adopting in Singapore (as written ones did until recently in much of the West). What is more, an unwed, heterosexual man can only adopt a boy. After much research, the couple paid $200,000 to an American firm to help them conceive abroad. “We thought that in starting our family, the best way was surrogacy,” says one.
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But under Singaporean law, any child born to an unmarried couple (including all gay ones) is deemed illegitimate. That means the parents do not receive a “baby bonus” from the state or certain tax breaks accorded to the parents of legitimate children. The child does not automatically inherit anything when both parents die. The family will have a harder time gaining access to public housing. And illegitimate children born abroad to a Singaporean father are not automatically entitled to Singaporean citizenship, depriving them of yet more benefits.
In her ruling, which the couple plan to appeal, Shobha Nair, the judge, tut-tutted about “the use of money to encourage the movement of life from one hand to another” (payment for adoption is illegal in Singapore). But many heterosexual Singaporean couples conceive using foreign surrogates each year, although they may attempt to conceal this from the authorities.
Ms Nair also excoriated the pair for trying to find a way to start a family, or for “walking through the back door of the system when the front door was firmly shut”. She claimed that “it is no place of this Court to dictate to the applicant what a family unit ought to…look like,” even as her ruling firmly laid out that the ideal family unit, in the eyes of the Singaporean state, entails the marriage of a man to a woman.
