ABC TV - Stateline Victoria - "Government considering widespread remorms to the state's IVF and surrogancy laws" by Cheryl Hall

Transcript - Stateline Victoria - "Government considering widespread remorms to the state's IVF and surrogancy laws" by Cheryl Hall

JACKIE ROBINSON, MOTHER: What better proof do you need, apart from looking at them. You can tell they're certainly --

BRETT ROBINSON, FATHER: If you look at them, you can tell they're ours.

JACKIE ROBINSON: Certainly Brett's.

BRETT ROBINSON: Chad's more like me and Todd’s more like you.

CHERYL HALL, REPORTER: Brett and Jackie Robinson are the proud parents of twin boys, Chad and Todd. Using their own eggs and sperm, the boys were conceived through IVF. But as Jackie Robinson has explained to her sons, they were carried by a friend who acted as a surrogate mother.

JACKIE ROBINSON: Belinda, bless her, she was absolutely fantastic in what she's done for us. Her whole idea was just to help us out to become a family and she did a fantastic job and she said that's where it stops. When the boys are born, they're ours and for us to raise as we see fit.

BRETT ROBINSON: We can't thank her enough for what they’ve done. That's great. We're very happy.

CHERYL HALL: But the complications began even before the boys were born.

JACKIE ROBINSON: We were originally under the impression that Brett was going to be allowed to be on the birth certificate and we thought with that, we can later have me added. That didn't worry us, just so long as one of us was on the birth certificate to start with was great. Then we found out, after Belinda was already pregnant, or carrying the boys, that they had to be a legally married couple to even go into the process, so from that day on Mark's name is on it and neither of us got a look in.

CHERYL HALL: Under Victorian law it's the surrogate mother, the woman who gives birth, who is listed as the mother on the birth certificate, and her husband is listed as the father. It's created endless problems for Jackie and Brett Robinson, who have no legal parenting rights over their sons.

JACKIE ROBINSON: I actually found out when one of my boys was going in to have his tonsils out and I was just discussing with the nurse as we were carrying him in to be anaesthetized. I was saying to the nurse the size of the boys and she said, “You must have been huge,” and I said, “I didn’t actually carry them,” and I explained to her that we had a wonderful surrogate who did that for us. She said, "Do you realise you can't admit your boy in the hospital? You have to have the surrogate's consent because she's the legal mother." That really spun me out then. I thought, “That can't be right, they’re my boys.” If we ever need to apply for passports, we have to get Belinda's consent on almost anything, which is not right. It's crazy. The laws are crazy.

CHERYL HALL: There's no doubt the Robinsons are the biological parents of Chad and Todd. They've even had DNA tests to prove it, but it changes nothing. The legal limbo created by the current laws isn't limited to the traditional family unit. It also affects a growing community of gay and lesbian parents who have found ways to have children. Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise spent $150,000 in the United States to have baby Ethan, through an anonymous egg donor and a surrogate mother.

JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE, PARENT: Before we had Ethan we socialised with other gay dads so we got a lot of ideas from them and got a lot of advice from them as well.

CHERYL HALL: What's been the hardest bit?

JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE: Initially probably waking up (indistinct) but he's being very good to us and he's sleeping through the night for the last 1.5 months.

CHERYL HALL: One of them is the biological father; the surrogate mother is listed on the birth certificate as unknown. But the bureaucratic problems started once they arrived back in Melbourne.

RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE, PARENT: One of us is the biological father of Ethan and one of us is the non-biological father of Ethan. The non-biological father has no parenting rights in Australia. It presents issues when applying for a passport. It could present issues if Ethan gets sick and needs medical treatment in hospital. We could be presented with problems there. But the biggest fear is if the biological father does die, Ethan actually has no parent at all, no relative at all under the law, even though he has another father.

CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise are planning to be the first couple on the City of Yarra's new relationship register when it opens on 7 May. They hope the council register and the one being set up by the State Government will inadvertently help the non-biological parent to adopt Ethan by providing evidence a relationship exists. But that's a move that will be opposed by the powerful Christian lobby. They support the relationship register, as long as it doesn't mimic marriage and doesn't open the door to adoption or parenting rights for same sex couples.

ROB WARD, AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIAN LOBBY: The register doesn't allow that. That would be a consequential change to other acts like the Adoption Act and so on. We feel the best interests of the child might not be served in that situation.

CHERYL HALL: Why not?

ROB WARD: The evidence seems to be pretty clear that the best interests of a child are served by having a mother and a father present, and that would be the ideal that we would be aiming for.

CHERYL HALL: If the State Government follows the interim recommendations of the Law Reform Commission, Jackie and Brett Robinson will be recognised as parents, with the surrogate's consent. But Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise face bigger hurdles. Under the interim recommendations, they could have a child through altruistic surrogacy, but not commercial surrogacy. The Christian lobby is opposing both.

ROB WARD: I would say that there is a great deal of sympathy for infertile couples - I’m talking here married, heterosexual couples. Let me make that distinction really clear. There is a great deal of sympathy for people who are infertile. I’m not quite sure that we're ready to rush down the road and to open the door, if you like, to surrogacy for all. Certainly not for homosexual couples.

CHERYL HALL: Can you say what you think would be best for the child in this situation?

ROB WARD: Firstly for it not to have happened. This couple, and perhaps others like them, are making a deliberate choice, a conscious decision, to bring about a child that doesn't have proper parents in the normal sense. One wonders, down the track, what the future for that child might be, how confused that child might be about who its mother was, who its father is.

CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise believe the community is ready to accept gay and lesbian families.

RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE: We’ve had nothing but positive experiences. The community looks at a family and it doesn't matter what shape it is, and if it's happy and they see the kids are looked after and loved, that's what matters.
: What better proof do you need, apart from looking at them. You can tell they're certainly --

BRETT ROBINSON: If you look at them, you can tell they're ours.

JACKIE ROBINSON: Certainly Brett's.

BRETT ROBINSON: Chad's more like me and Todd’s more like you.

CHERYL HALL: Brett and Jackie Robinson are the proud parents of twin boys, Chad and Todd. Using their own eggs and sperm, the boys were conceived through IVF. But as Jackie Robinson has explained to her sons, they were carried by a friend who acted as a surrogate mother.

JACKIE ROBINSON: Belinda, bless her, she was absolutely fantastic in what she's done for us. Her whole idea was just to help us out to become a family and she did a fantastic job and she said that's where it stops. When the boys are born, they're ours and for us to raise as we see fit.

BRETT ROBINSON: We can't thank her enough for what they’ve done. That's great. We're very happy.

CHERYL HALL: But the complications began even before the boys were born.

JACKIE ROBINSON: We were originally under the impression that Brett was going to be allowed to be on the birth certificate and we thought with that, we can later have me added. That didn't worry us, just so long as one of us was on the birth certificate to start with was great. Then we found out, after Belinda was already pregnant, or carrying the boys, that they had to be a legally married couple to even go into the process, so from that day on Mark's name is on it and neither of us got a look in.

CHERYL HALL: Under Victorian law it's the surrogate mother, the woman who gives birth, who is listed as the mother on the birth certificate, and her husband is listed as the father. It's created endless problems for Jackie and Brett Robinson, who have no legal parenting rights over their sons.

JACKIE ROBINSON: I actually found out when one of my boys was going in to have his tonsils out and I was just discussing with the nurse as we were carrying him in to be anaesthetized. I was saying to the nurse the size of the boys and she said, “You must have been huge,” and I said, “I didn’t actually carry them,” and I explained to her that we had a wonderful surrogate who did that for us. She said, "Do you realise you can't admit your boy in the hospital? You have to have the surrogate's consent because she's the legal mother." That really spun me out then. I thought, “That can't be right, they’re my boys.” If we ever need to apply for passports, we have to get Belinda's consent on almost anything, which is not right. It's crazy. The laws are crazy.

CHERYL HALL: There's no doubt the Robinsons are the biological parents of Chad and Todd. They've even had DNA tests to prove it, but it changes nothing. The legal limbo created by the current laws isn't limited to the traditional family unit. It also affects a growing community of gay and lesbian parents who have found ways to have children. Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise spent $150,000 in the United States to have baby Ethan, through an anonymous egg donor and a surrogate mother.

JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE: Before we had Ethan we socialised with other gay dads so we got a lot of ideas from them and got a lot of advice from them as well.

CHERYL HALL: What's been the hardest bit?

JEFF CHIANG-CRUISE: Initially probably waking up (indistinct) but he's being very good to us and he's sleeping through the night for the last 1.5 months.

CHERYL HALL: One of them is the biological father; the surrogate mother is listed on the birth certificate as unknown. But the bureaucratic problems started once they arrived back in Melbourne.

RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE: One of us is the biological father of Ethan and one of us is the non-biological father of Ethan. The non-biological father has no parenting rights in Australia. It presents issues when applying for a passport. It could present issues if Ethan gets sick and needs medical treatment in hospital. We could be presented with problems there. But the biggest fear is if the biological father does die, Ethan actually has no parent at all, no relative at all under the law, even though he has another father.

CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise are planning to be the first couple on the City of Yarra's new relationship register when it opens on 7 May. They hope the council register and the one being set up by the State Government will inadvertently help the non-biological parent to adopt Ethan by providing evidence a relationship exists. But that's a move that will be opposed by the powerful Christian lobby. They support the relationship register, as long as it doesn't mimic marriage and doesn't open the door to adoption or parenting rights for same sex couples.

ROB WARD: The register doesn't allow that. That would be a consequential change to other acts like the Adoption Act and so on. We feel the best interests of the child might not be served in that situation.

CHERYL HALL: Why not?

ROB WARD: The evidence seems to be pretty clear that the best interests of a child are served by having a mother and a father present, and that would be the ideal that we would be aiming for.

CHERYL HALL: If the State Government follows the interim recommendations of the Law Reform Commission, Jackie and Brett Robinson will be recognised as parents, with the surrogate's consent. But Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise face bigger hurdles. Under the interim recommendations, they could have a child through altruistic surrogacy, but not commercial surrogacy. The Christian lobby is opposing both.

ROB WARD: I would say that there is a great deal of sympathy for infertile couples - I’m talking here married, heterosexual couples. Let me make that distinction really clear. There is a great deal of sympathy for people who are infertile. I’m not quite sure that we're ready to rush down the road and to open the door, if you like, to surrogacy for all. Certainly not for homosexual couples.

CHERYL HALL: Can you say what you think would be best for the child in this situation?

ROB WARD: Firstly for it not to have happened. This couple, and perhaps others like them, are making a deliberate choice, a conscious decision, to bring about a child that doesn't have proper parents in the normal sense. One wonders, down the track, what the future for that child might be, how confused that child might be about who its mother was, who its father is.

CHERYL HALL: Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise believe the community is ready to accept gay and lesbian families.

RODNEY CHIANG-CRUISE: We’ve had nothing but positive experiences. The community looks at a family and it doesn't matter what shape it is, and if it's happy and they see the kids are looked after and loved, that's what matters.

[Link: ABC Transcript]

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Northcote Leader - "Gay parents' parity plea"

LESBIANS across Darebin have made a desperate plea for the legal recognition of non-biological parents .

Their personal stories are included in a Victorian Law Reform Commission submission made to Attorney-General Rob Hulls last month.

Mr Hulls has until June 20 to table the report on Assisted Reproductive Technology and Adoption.

In its draft submissions, the commission recommends that the law be changed to recognise the birth mother's female partner as a parent of the child. It also recommends same-sex couples have equal access to the technology and be legally entitled to engage surrogate mothers.

Women's Health in the North deputy chair Susan Rennie said the organisation broadly supported the interim recommendations.

``Law reform will be beneficial to children born in these (same-sex) relationships because it will mean, at least from a legal point of view, that their families will cease to be considered differently to other families in the community,'' she said.

Ms Rennie, a lesbian in a relationship with two children, said women did not seek medical help for fear of breaking the laws.

``If a woman thinks she is breaking the law by self-inseminating she might not consult her doctor and may be less inclined to ask a donor to undertake appropriate medical tests,'' she said.

Preston couple Felicity and Sarah Marlowe were so concerned by the implication of the law that they started a lobby group, Love Makes a Family, in 2004.

``We started a campaign to mobilise the community around law reform; seeking legal and social recognition of rainbow families,'' Felicity said.

They now have 170 members on their email list and have made a formal submission to the commission also broadly supporting the recommendations.

Other locals who made submissions include Northcote couple Vivien Ray and Robin Gregory; parents of a teenage daughter conceived by donor insemination.

``It would make a great difference to us if the non-biological parent could do a second parent adoption,'' they said. ``It would be such a relief after all these years to be legally recognised.''

Preston's Sabdha Charlton says her partner Cristina Pink is six months pregnant with their first child. They feel strongly that the law should not differentiate between hetero and homosexual couples.

* Should same-sex couples be given the same legal rights as hetero couples? Write to the editor at www.northcoteleader.com.au

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Sydney Star Observer - "Gay Men Redefining Fatherhood" by Sunny Burns

Every day gay fathers face negative social reactions. But despite the stigmas they’re now vital figures in the ongoing redefinition of fatherhood.

Author Theresa Miller is such a believer in this brave new parenting direction she has included a section on it in her new book Making Babies.

The book tells the personal memoirs of 14 different IVF users and gives insight into an array of topics from egg harvesting to blastocyst transferral.

IVF now accounts for three percent of all births in Australia, and with the push for children in the gay and lesbian community, Miller believes this figure will only continue to rise.

Gay father and doctor Jason, whose story is featured in Making Babies, said he wanted the gay community to know it could have children – and that it is one of the most rewarding opportunities in life.

“I always had this feeling that I wanted to have children,” he said. “I wanted to pass on things to a child like a sense of knowledge – nothing material.”

Jason said it was after watching a documentary on gay parenting that he was inspired to fulfil his life-long dream.

“I went on the internet and found this particular website on surrogacy and eventually flew over to Los Angeles and put a deposit down and that was it,” he said.

“My partner wasn’t very supportive at first because it never came to his mind that he could have children and he thought that I wouldn’t go through with it.

“Once the surrogate got pregnant he became very supportive and we flew to the US for the ultrasound and labour.”

The process wasn’t cheap, costing around $200,000, but the result was a gorgeous baby girl and an ongoing relationship with the surrogate mother.

“She’s just turned one and it’s going very well. And rewarding,” he said. “I hope people read the book and know that they do have the choice and don’t have to give up.”

Despite the joys and success of the program, Jason said he is still disappointed he was unable to explore the surrogacy option in Australia.

“The only regret I have is that it’s illegal to do it in Australia and it cost so much,” he said.

“This is unfair for people who don’t have the funds – we need to push for this so it’s available for everyone.”

As well as the book, Jason said there were extensive support networks around the country for gay couples with children or who want to have them.

“There’s a support group called Gay Dads,” Jason said. “It’s a diverse group of people who have gone through similar situations. There are about 10 couples in my group and we all keep in touch.”

Making Babies is out now, RRP $29.95. For more details on Gay Dads, check the website on www.gaydadsaustralia.com.

[Link: Original Article]

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The Age - "Baby Ethan a priceless 'gift' worth every cent" by Carol Nadar

IT'S hard to tell who baby Ethan's biological father is. And that's the way his parents, Rodney and Jeff Chiang-Cruise, intended it to be.

The Melbourne couple recently returned from Ohio with their three-month old son, who was conceived in the US through a surrogacy arrangement.

They used two egg donors. Sperm from Rodney, who is Caucasian, was used to create an embryo with an Asian donor's egg. Sperm from Jeff, who has an Asian background, was fertilised with a Caucasian donor's egg. Both embryos were implanted into the surrogate, Kelly.

If both embryos were successful, the men would each be the biological parent of a twin.

If one was successful — as it turned out — the child would at least have physical traits from both their backgrounds.

A DNA test after Ethan's birth confirmed who the biological father is. But that information, they say, is for Ethan to know.

Their son will never know, however, the identity of his biological mother.

Australian gay couples are increasingly seeking surrogacy arrangements in the US to fulfil their parental dreams.

To meet the $150,000 cost of conceiving Ethan, of which up to a quarter went to the surrogate, Rodney and Jeff remortgaged their house. Rodney says it is "just really shitty" that loving couples have to travel to become parents.

The Law Reform Commission says gay and lesbian couples and single women should have equal access to surrogacy as others.

Rodney says conservative opponents such as the Catholic Church should direct their energy into caring for neglected or abused children living in conventional families.

"They should stop worrying about people who are creating families out of love," he says.

Rodney is comfortable with the commercial aspect of Ethan's conception. The surrogate made some money, but she already had her own family.

"This was a gift that she wanted to share with somebody else."

[Link: Original Article]

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Channel 10 - The Catch Up - "Same Sex, Same Rights"

Same Sex, Same Rights? Gay Parents & Adoption - Gay parents Jason and Adrian Tuazon-McCheyne discuss laws regarding same-sex couples and adoption in Australia.

Same Sex, Same Rights? Gay Parents & Adoption

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The Age - "Making babies for all" by Carol Nadar

TO MAKE their first baby, Anna Russell and Sacha Petersen drove 3½ hours to cross the NSW border to Albury. Petersen lay on a table, and a nurse inseminated her with a donor's sperm. Ten minutes later, what the couple call the "spermination" was complete. Blue-eyed baby Mabel was born 17 months ago.

Now Russell and Petersen are trying for a second child. The first donor is unavailable and the Albury clinic — traditionally the place where Victorian lesbians and single women go for fertility treatment — has all but run out of sperm donors. So the couple have shifted their hopes to Tasmania. Each month they fly to Launceston and leave Mabel with family there. Then they drive to Hobart, where Petersen receives treatment. They drive back to Launceston, pick up Mabel, and fly back to Melbourne. The couple have gone through this ritual five times, costing them about $5000 in airfares and treatment. But Petersen hasn't fallen pregnant.

If their sixth attempt in May fails, Petersen can be declared "medically infertile" — that means that under Victoria's labyrinthine laws governing reproductive treatment, she can receive IVF treatment in her own state for the first time.

"There's no logic behind it that we can see," Russell says. "The Federal Government is handing out money for straight people to have babies left, right and centre. The famous quote (by Treasurer Peter Costello) 'one for you, one for your partner, and one for Australia'. You have a whole community wanting to do that."

There is another anomaly. Victorian reproductive laws are the most restrictive in the country mainly because it was the most progressive state for infertility treatment in the early years. Victoria was one of the first places in the world to offer IVF, in which embryos are created using a woman's eggs and a man's sperm then implanted into the woman. It was the first Australian state to legislate in 1984 when IVF was so new and so controversial that it was strictly controlled. The sole purpose of IVF then was to help infertile married couples have biological children.

The medical technology has always bumped up against community unease. Even de facto heterosexual couples were banned from using it until a decade ago and, although attitudes towards lesbians and single women having children have changed dramatically in a generation, such people remain excluded unless they are clinically infertile.

Soon, that might change. The Victorian Law Reform Commission has spent more than four years reviewing the state's fertility legislation. Yesterday, it handed its final report to Attorney-General Rob Hulls, and its recommendations will be made public in coming weeks. In a draft report released in 2005, the commission indicated it would recommend that lesbian couples and single women be given the same access to fertility treatment as women in heterosexual relationships. That would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, when the notion of "social infertility" was unheard of.

Despite the rapidly changing definition of "family", the debate about whether Victoria should, like most other states, make it easier for single women and lesbians to have children is likely to be emotional and intense. In a sign of the discomfort the issue arouses, the Bracks Government has so far avoided making its position clear.

What is clear is that the impact of the restrictions has been profound for Victorian women desperate for a child who have been forced to travel around the country for treatment. The phenomenon even has a name — "reproductive tourism". Last year, the Albury clinic treated 44 women, of whom 30 were from Victoria. Thirteen were lesbians, 19 were single and eight were married. Victorian women also travel regularly to Canberra, Sydney, Hobart and Brisbane.

Those wanting change see the law as a mishmash of contradictions. For instance, for lesbians and single women, infertility can be a cause for celebration — they can have IVF treatment in Victoria. But fertile single women or lesbians, who do not have a male partner or who are unwilling to sleep with a man solely for the purpose of becoming pregnant, do not have access to reproductive help.

The anomaly is due to a court case six years ago. A single woman who could not conceive for medical reasons, Leesa Meldrum, and her doctor, Melbourne IVF director Dr John McBain, tested a ban on single women using IVF in the Federal Court. The court upheld their argument that state legislation contravened the federal Sex Discrimination Act. Since then, women can no longer be excluded based on marital status. But they still need to meet the requirement of infertility.

So women who are fertile have to be creative. They either ask a friend to provide the sperm and inseminate themselves at home, a practice some worry is unsafe. Or they travel interstate.

In the aftermath of the McBain case, Hulls asked the Law Reform Commission in 2002 to review the legislation. Its interim recommendations urged the Government to remove the infertility requirement and allow access for women who are "unlikely" to become pregnant without treatment. That would cover all women without a male partner.

The commission argued the law was unfair because it was applied unevenly — a single woman with a genetic abnormality that could be passed onto her child is eligible for treatment. A single woman of 45 may be eligible for treatment because her age has made her clinically infertile. But a single woman aged 35 who does not have clinical infertility cannot be treated. These distinctions, the report noted, "make no sense". Nor did it believe that the marital status of a child's parents was linked to the child's health and welfare.

One heterosexual woman who spoke to The Age first explored the idea of having a baby when she was 40 but was ineligible because she was single. She is now 43 and pregnant, but only because tests proved she was medically infertile. Instead of celebrating her pregnancy, she lives in fear that she is going to have another miscarriage — her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage late last year. "I've been waiting for this all my life and then it's not the journey it should have been," she says. "I want to celebrate it, but you're scared all the time. Your chances of doing it earlier are easier. You shouldn't have to wait until you're infertile and you have 50 million obstacles in front of you."

There are other quirks caused by galloping technology. If a woman can find her own sperm donor, the Melbourne IVF clinic will screen and store the sperm for six months to make sure it is safe. She can then take it home and inseminate herself. The clinic can do all the tests but not the insemination. The aim is to reduce a woman's vulnerability to HIV.

Alice Murray and her partner are trying to have a baby using this program. "Both my partner and I work full time and going to Sydney when you're ovulating, which might be mid-week, is impractical from a work perspective," she says. "If you're working in a professional environment you can't just drop everything and leave."

The law may change to allow women to be inseminated in a clinic. But even if they could, some women might still choose to do it at home.

Dr Ruth McNair, a Melbourne University senior lecturer in general practice and a GP who specialises in gay and lesbian health, believes self-insemination is relatively safe. She says some women prefer the autonomy of doing it themselves. And some like the idea of giving gay men the opportunity of being parents, too. But if it isn't clear where they all stand — or if feelings change after the birth — it can lead to problems later.

"The most fraught part of it is the medical risk of transmitting infection, and secondly the legal risk if they haven't managed to make an adequate written negotiated contract," McNair says.

Dr Deb Dempsey, a lecturer in sociology at Swinburne University, says the law needs to catch up with the complexity of people's relationships. "Children deserve to be well supported and have legal recognition for the people that are actually parenting them," she says.

Opponents of lesbians and single women having access to IVF argue that children are better off being part of a traditional family. In the storm following the McBain case, Prime Minister John Howard said: "Children are entitled to the opportunity of both a mother and a father." His views were echoed by State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, who said in the lead-up to the November state election: "My view is that IVF ought to be for heterosexual couples."

When the Law Reform Commission released its interim report, Health Minister Tony Abbott blasted its "apparent dismissal of the traditional notion that children should ideally have male and female parents".

Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway says the priority should be the rights of the child. "Children do best in the context of family life, where their natural mother and father are involved in their day-to-day life and upbringing as their recognised parents, and preferably where that natural mother and father are married," she says.

But the Law Reform Commission has reviewed the literature and does not believe this is the case. It says there is sound evidence that children born into families with non-biological parents or same-sex parents do at least as well as other children.

According to social researchers, there is scant evidence that children who are not raised by a father and mother in a traditional way are worse off than children who are.

Sarah Wise, the principal research fellow in children and parenting at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, says the research, predominantly from the United States, does not suggest that children's wellbeing is at risk. Whether they're raised by one parent or two, a heterosexual couple or a gay one, is less important than the quality of care," she says.

"What matters most to children is the environment in which they grow up, the quality of the interactions they have with their care-givers and the security that they feel within those relationships."

What may be harmful to children is the lack of legal recognition given to the non-birth mother in a lesbian relationship. The non-biological, or "social" mother, does not have the right to be on the child's birth certificate and is not recognised as the legal parent in Victoria.

However, in another anomaly, if a heterosexual couple uses donor sperm to have a child, the woman's male partner is on the birth certificate.

The Law Reform Commission has suggested the non-birth mother deserves legal recognition and should appear on the birth certificate alongside the birth mother. Acting chairman Dr Iain Ross says if the birth mother dies , there is legal ambiguity about the rights and obligations of the surviving partner and it would be possible that the child could become a ward of the state. Then there are issues to do with inheritance and being able to consent to medical treatment and sign school forms.

"At worst, you've got a position where someone who was for all intents and purposes the parent of the children does not have any legal rights," Ross says. "They're not recognised as the parent and would have to seek some sort of legal intervention."

Robyn Hamilton and Helen Grutzner want this legal recognition. They have a four-year-old daughter, Harper, who was conceived in a Sydney clinic. They believe the non-birth mother, Hamilton, should automatically be considered a legal parent from birth. Their only recourse was to go to the Family Court to get a parenting order that gives her limited recognition of responsibility but doesn't give her legal status as a parent.

Anyone can apply for such an order — a grandparent, relative, even a friend. The order enables non-biological mothers to make some day-to-day decisions. But if anything were to happen to Grutzner, Hamilton would not necessarily get custody of Harper. That would depend on the good will of the court.

"It has an undermining impact on us as a family, in that we don't have that legal recognition and protection that other families do," says Grutzner.

Felicity and Sarah Marlowe are in a similar position, although they have not yet applied for a parenting order. Sarah Marlowe is medically infertile and can legally have IVF in Victoria. Her partner can't. Marlowe had twins Callum and Rafi, who are nine months old. As the birth mother, only her name is on the birth certificates. Even though the couple went through the process of having children together, Felicity Marlowe has no legal rights. She could walk away from the relationship and not be obligated to pay child support. If Sarah Marlowe ended the relationship, her partner may never see the twins again.

Meanwhile, for the women who are still trying to have a baby, the frustration and sense of grievance lingers. "We have a good house in the suburbs," says Alice Murray.

"We can afford to send our kids to good schools, we earn good money, we're in the best position to be parents, we want it more than a lot of people and there are roadblocks in the way."

Anna Russell and Sacha Petersen are creating story books for their children to explain how they were conceived. They've made one for Mabel, detailing how the couple met, fell in love and knew they wanted to have babies together.

But, the story goes, to have babies, you need an egg and sperm — but "mum" and "muma" are both girls who only have eggs. So they got into their little blue car and drove to a place called Albury, where a kind man supplied the sperm.

Mabel will know her story from the start. But more importantly, says Russell: "Our children will know that they're the most wanted children, because we had to go all over Australia to create them."

Carol Nader is The Age health editor.


[Link: Original Article]

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Australian Journal of Early Childhood - "Voices from an enclave: lesbian mothers' experiences of child care" by Tania Ferfolja & Jen Skattebol

Eight lesbian mothers' experiences and perceptions of their young children's early childhood education are examined in this paper. The visibility of their lesbian identities and the narrow definition of family in early childhood settings were seen as significant issues in their experiences as child care users. The paper traces the issues to the normative ideas of, and superficial engagement with, families in early childhood curriculum, pedagogy, practices and procedures. Even in a relatively accepting community within a lesbian enclave in inner city Sydney, the mothers were required to undertake complex negotiations about the way the child care setting catered to their family constellation in everyday practices. The paper argues that early childhood educators could better support this group through more active engagement in representing a broad range of differences, including those relating to sexuality. (Journal abstract, edited)

[Source: Australian Journal of Early Childhood v.32 no.1 Mar 2007: 10-18]

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