New surrogacy laws in the Northern Territory that allow adults to commission a child claim to be underpinned by the “principle of the paramountcy of the best interests of the child”. Such a claim is clearly incompatible with an enterprise that will certainly involve separating a child from its gestational mother at birth. What the legislation does – but seems reluctant to say – is that it will prioritise the wish of adults to acquire a child, even though this necessarily involves compromising the interests of the child who, of course, has no say in the arrangements made to “commission” their conception. If the child’s interests enter the equation at all, it can only be after the fact.