One of the two fathers who are fighting for their children to be given Namibian citizenship has taken Eagle Fm through how their twins were birthed.
The nature of their birth and paternity where Phillip Lühl and his husband Guillermo Delgado Casterneda are fathers to the twins has created a snag at Home Affairs.
Opening up to Eagle FM on the Early Morning Scoop this morning, Lühl said they donated their sperms to a surrogate mother while an anonymous woman donated her egg-cell.
This, according to Lühl has disqualified the woman who carried the twins as their biological and genetic mother.
However home affairs has asked for genetic proof that Lühl and Guillermo Delgado Casterneda are the biological parents.
Lühl has said theirs is a classic case where LGBTQI+ persons continue to suffer oppression.
He said a few weeks ago a friend of his was attacked for wearing a dress.
“There is still a lot of misinformation about surrogacy. From day one these children are our children. Home Affairs wants us to prove that me as a Namibian father have a genetic link to the babies so that they can issue Namibian citizenship by descent.
That is the court case of our first born son which is still pending before the court. By South African law there has to be at least a link by one of the commissioning parents and that is a prerogative for even starting the surrogacy process.
“In modern day surrogacy, the surrogate mother is not the genetic mother. So we have not used her egg cells for the (children) but rather the egg cells of an anonymous egg donor. In South Africa again it’s legislated that egg donors are anonymous and we can not know their identity.
“So the egg cells are feritilized in vitro and then implanted into the womb of the surrogate mother and that is to reduce the sort of bonding that the surrogate mother has with this baby and also because surrogate mothers are required by law to have their own children. They are fully aware of what they are getting themselves into. These are finer details that are very important to know to avoid sort of these misconceptions,” he said.
In vitro fertilisation is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm outside the body, in vitro.
The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman’s ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova from the woman’s ovaries and letting sperm fertilize them in a culture medium in a laboratory.
He said both of them do not have South African citizenship and thus can not easily attain citizenship for their twins there.
Luhl will now be fighting home affairs for a third time and has been struggling to have permanent residency for his Mexican husband.
A demonstration has been slated for tomorrow where the case will play out at court.
