IT'S been a week of baby talk, with surrogacy, abortion and same sex adoption - with their inherent ethical minefields for all involved dominating the headlines. Reproductive issues always seem to become linked to human rights - the right to have a child, the woman's right to choose, the rights of the father, the right of the foetus to live, and now the right of gay couples to have a baby.
"We have a Godgiven right to be parents. We all have the right to have children. It doesn't matter who we are or what we are, and I want to be able to partake in that right," announced Russell Conlon to the media, as he appealed for a lesbian couple to enter a surrogate motherhood arrangement with him and his long time partner, Chris Joyce.
Their very public appeal earlier this week prompted outrage from church groups. Tory MPs and family organisations and demands for a change in the law. Both men, who are unemployed, have been turned down for fostering and adopting children because of their disabilities. Mr Conlon (39), a former stone mason, has osteoarthritis and the brittle bone disease osteoporosis, while Mr Joyce (32) is an epiletic.
"This may he a mutually beneficial arrangement for the men, but it wouldn't be beneficial for the child to be brought up in such a strange situation. I don't want to harass those who have a learning difficulty, but children should not be subjected to this abnormality. I hope that society will decide that it is wrong that children and babies should become pawns in the need for individuals to gratify their emotions," said Mr Nicholas Winterton, the Tory MP for Macclesfield.
The two men are currently using gay contacts and searching classified advertisements in gay magazines to find a potential lesbian couple willing to be artificially inseminated with Mr Joyce's sperm. The plan is for the child care to be shared between them all, with the baby spending half a week with the men, the other half with the women.
As the existing law stands, this arrangement is not illegal, provided the two men do hot offer financial inducements. Baroness Warnock, who has advised on many of Britain's "ethical" laws, suggested the case was "problematic", arguing that although she believed gay people can raise children, a surrogacy arrangement creates different problems.
"It may be extremely dangerous to go down the road of making this acceptable. It is a question of who they get, related to the question of payment. Most people would want a substantial amount of money I suspect that if you decide to live with a homosexual partner you've got to forgo bringing up a child, it is not a right," she said.
But the two men are determined to become parents and are saving their benefits, to pay for the surrogate mother's expenses. "We are deeply committed to one another and we had a blessing last December which we consider as strong as marriage. We love each other very much and in the eyes of God we are married. We are prepared to do anything for a child," insisted Mr Conlon.
Undoubtedly the whole surrogacy issue is complex and Britain's law has frequently been condemned for being inadequate and unable to cope with the increasing number of people wanting to hake children by "borrowing another woman's womb".
The Confederation of Health Authorities called for clearer guidelines on surrogacy, particularly in cases where doctors faced "extraordinarily difficult moral decisions". Stephen Thornton, of the confederation, said the two men were a "classic case" of a dilemma that needed to be clarified nationally and suggested that society had to decide now whether the NHS should help gay couples to have children, rather than asking doctors to decide individually.
The British Medical Association has already asked the government to finance medical and psychological support for all involved in surrogacy and is hoping to extend its research into the issue.
"We have no objection in principle to homosexual parents. One problem with surrogacy is resources, and the different treatment of would be parents in different parts of the country. We are worried about surrogacy. We support surrogacy as a treatment for infertility when it is the last resort but we must remember that the needs of the child must come first," said a BMA spokesman.
The controversy over surrogacy continues with the Karen Roache case. She was a surrogate mother who pulled out of an arrangement with a Dutch couple earlier this month after receiving £12,000 sterling in expenses and then allegedly offered the baby to another couple. The Minister for Health, Ms Tessa Jowell, has since pledged she will examine any case which may expose the legal limitations, and will review the law if necessary.