Herald Sun - "Gay and Single Women Win Right to Fertility Treatment" - by Nick Higginbottom

GAY and single women can have babies with fertility treatment after controversial legislation passed State Parliament.

Upper House MPs voted 20 to 18 in favour of the amended legislation at 8.30pm. The result was greeted with uproarious applause and cheers from dozens of mothers with children in the public gallery.

The amendments to the legislation then passed the Lower House just after 11pm.

Divisive elements of the Bill - that force women accessing IVF treatment to undergo police checks - were retained, despite outspoken doctors and a former judge having condemned them.

The Government was forced to introduce amendments regarding surrogacy and identity matters yesterday to curry favour with some MPs who were wavering in their support for the Bill.

Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Labor MP Brian Tee introduced three amendments and said the Bill was all about the rights of the child.

"That's why it's a great result,'' he said.

Attorney-General Rob Hulls, who announced the legislation last December, said it was ground-breaking reform.

"It's long overdue, it modernises our laws and it ends discrimination against people who haven't been able to get access to ART (assisted reproductive technology),'' he said.

Amendments to the Bill mean:

A WOMAN who uses IVF to become a surrogate mother cannot do so for her first child, nor can she use her own eggs.

THERE will be increased counselling, particularly if something goes wrong.

A CHILD will have "donor conceived'' marked next to its name on the birth register, but not on its birth certificate


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Sydney Star Observer - " Gay Adoption Next" - by Harley Dennet

The NSW Government has promised a parliamentary inquiry into legalising same-sex adoption after making changes to speed up the approval process for heterosexuals.

“The issue of same-sex adoption was not included in the amendments, however, it was agreed the issue would be referred to the Law and Justice Committee,” a spokesman for Community Services Minister Linda Burney said. “We look forward to the committee’s findings and when the report is due we’ll look at the issue.”

The inquiry will hold hearings early in 2009 to coincide with a separate ongoing inquiry into altruistic surrogacy.

This comes more than 10 years after the NSW Law Reform Commission recommended the current ban against same-sex couples be dropped, and more than two years since another review by the Department of Community Services was handed to the Government.

Attempts by Sydney Star Observer to obtain the 2006 DOCS report through freedom of information laws were unsuccessful as it contained recommendations. It is still not confirmed that the report recommended legalising same-sex adoption.

Stranger adoptions are uncommon due to the low number of Australian children available — around 20 per year. Countries allowing overseas adoptions generally do not use same-sex couples.

Most cases where same-sex adoption would apply are in existing foster arrangements with a gay couple.

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby strongly supported the inquiry into the last piece of NSW law that still discriminates against same-sex couples.

“NSW is in the ludicrous position of allowing individual lesbians and gay men to be assessed for adoption eligibility, but not same-sex couples. This discrimination hurts children by denying legal and social recognition to lesbian and gay parents,” Lobby spokesman Peter Johnson said.

“Adoption reform is essential for long-term foster carers, some step-parents and co-parents. Adoption would give children the economic and emotional stability which comes with the recognition of their families.”

This year co-mothers were given the right to legally adopt the biological children of their partner if they participated in the artificial conception process. But co-fathers were not included.

The inquiry into altruistic surrogacy laws heard in October gay men have
been seeking commercial surrogacy options in the US due to a lack of parenting options in Australia. That inquiry is not expected to report until the second half of 2009. Liberal powerbroker David Clarke is on both inquiries.


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Southern Star - "Victorian Couples Recognised" by Andie Noonan

After sharing eight years and one son together, Rodney Cruise and Jeff Chiang are finally an official couple in the eyes of  the law.

Cruise and Chiang were among the first couples to take advantage of the Victorian Relationships Register, which opened this week and will allow same-sex couples to formally register their unions.

With 23-month-old son Ethan in their arms, the pair registered at the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages on Monday, the register’s first day, with three other same-sex couples.

Victorian Parliament passed laws earlier this year to allow unmarried heterosexual and same-sex domestic partners to formalise their relationships with a registry scheme.

Registration will now provide conclusive proof of a domestic relationship under Victorian law.

The Victorian scheme mirrors those operating in the ACT and Tasmania .

Cruise told Southern Star it was an important step on the road to what he and his partner hope will be the right to marry.

Cruise said the two decided to formalise their union for both practical and symbolic reasons.

“If one of us died, I don’t want to be having to prove the person just buried is my partner to disbelieving public servants or banks or whoever,” he said.

“It’s really important knowing our family will be recorded in official government documents.

“The historic nature of it is that gay families are recognised for the first time. We are a recognised part of the community.”

Although there are no planned festivities, the couple celebrated their anniversary with a recent trip to Japan, and, more importantly for Ethan, a trip to Disneyland.

Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls launched the scheme, saying it was a significant day for those who cannot or don’t wish to marry, to have their relationship respected.

“This will make it easier for couples to access their rights under Victorian law and provide certainty to their legal obligations, without having to argue repeatedly that they are in a committed partnership or to have to prove this in court,” he said.

Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission CEO, Dr Helen Szoke welcomed couples to the first day of registration.

Registering couples need to be 18 years or older, live in Victoria and not be married or in another domestic relationship already registered in Victoria.

Registering a relationship will cost $180, with additional costs for a registration certificate.

info: www.bdm.vic.gov.au

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MCV - "Couples Register their Love"

Same-sex couples lined up to register their relationships at the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages on Monday.

The Brumby Government’s new Relationships Register was launched by Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls, who said it provided couples who did not want to marry or who were unable to do so with formal recognition of their committed relationship.

John Edie and his partner, Adam, were among those couples who registered their relationship on Monday.

“It’s wonderful that the state of Victoria is now recognising same-sex relationships, and it was exciting to be among the first couples at this morning’s launch,” Edie told MCV.

“Being a New Zealander, where we’ve had the Civil Union Bill for a number of years, it’s nice to see Australia starting to catch up, and this is an important step. I would encourage all those Victorian couples in committed relationships to show support for the Register, by going in and registering.”

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Progress Leader - "Kew couple’s vote hope" by Cassie Maher

A KEW lesbian couple have urged local Upper House MPs to support a controversial law they say will change their lives.

Jacqui Tomlins and partner Sarah Nichols were married in Canada in 2003 and have three children - Corin, 6, Scout, 3, and Cully, 18 months.

The pair are desperately hoping the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Bill, passed by the Lower House in October, will gain support in a December 2 conscience vote.

The Bill, which has met strong opposition from church and Christian groups, would give lesbians access to IVF, surrogacy or insemination in Victoria; and it would legally recognise the female partner of a woman who has given birth via assisted reproductive technology as a parent.

Ms Tomlins said as a non-biological parent (Ms Nichols gave birth through IVF) she had no legal connection to her children. “If I’m killed in an accident they don’t have access to compensation, or to my estate. I can’t provide legal consent for medical emergencies and if anything happened to Sarah I wouldn’t get automatic custody,” she said.

Ms Tomlins said the Kew community had been “hugely supportive” of the couple’s five-year fight for greater rights within same-sex families (Progress Leader, May 2007 and January 2008).

Favourable votes from Southern Metropolitan Liberal MPs David Davis and Andrea Coote were now “critical”, Ms Tomlins said. Both opposed the Bill in its second reading (20 votes to 18) on November 13.

“If they want to represent the community then they need to support this,” Ms Tomlins said.

Mr Davis said he was generally supportive of the Bill, but criticised mandatory police checks that could act as a barrier for those seeking fertility treatments.

Ms Coote said last week it was too early for a “definitive answer” until a report came back from the legislative committee with amendments.

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UTSpeaks: Reproductive Minefields - Can we make laws to deal with the social and ethical complexities of surrogate pregnancies?

The UTSpeaks series presented on 29 October 2008 a talk by ANita Stuhmcke entitled "Reproductive Minefields - Can we make laws to deal with the social and ethical complexities of surrogate pregnancies?"

"Advances in reproductive technology, harnessed to powerful emotional drives for parenthood, have outpaced an inconsistent patchwork of Australian biomedical law.

The silence of NSW law on surrogate motherhood is now being addressed, but how effective will regulation be in balancing community standards with what people are prepared to do to have a child? Would a national approach be more effective?"

Anita Stuhmcke - Associate Professor Anita Stuhmcke has studied surrogacy and the laws surrounding it for more than 15 years, becoming a sought-out public commentator on the issues of using third parties to produce children. She teaches in the fields of tort and biomedical law in the UTS Faculty of Law, with a general research interest in exploring the limits of the law to accommodate social, political and economic change.

The material on this talk is available from the UTS Website

* flyer (PDF 52k)
* presentation slides (PDF 112k)
* talk (PDF 116k)
* audio recording (MP3 22.7 MB)

UTSPEAKS: is a free public lecture series presented by UTS experts discussing a range of important issues confronting contemporary Australia.

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The Advertiser - "30 South Australian lesbian mums 'impregnated by same man" by Tony Shepherd

UNREGULATED sperm donation is leading to unusual situations in which the children of lesbians in Adelaide are mixing socially - creating a risk of incest.

One of South Australia's foremost experts in reproductive technology - Reverend Dr Andrew Dutney - says that in one reported case, about 30 lesbians were impregnated by sperm from one man.

The mothers then organised picnics with all the children, raising the fear they might socialise with their half-siblings without realising they are related.

In another case, a man's sperm was used to produce 29 children, most of whom are living in Adelaide. They do not know who their half-siblings are, raising concerns that in a "big country town" like Adelaide, they could accidentally commit incest.

In South Australia it has become standard practice to identify sperm donors, which has put men off donating through reproductive clinics.

Fertility treatments do not generally cater to homosexuals, because the law says it is only for infertile couples or those at risk of transmitting a serious defect.

These factors combine to push many people wanting children to seek help elsewhere - either through "turkey basters" or casual sex with friends or willing participants found online.

Assoc Prof Dutney, the former chair of the SA Council on Reproductive Technology and Associate Professor of Theology at Flinders University, says the SA regulations are at fault and should be repealed altogether, leaving reproductive medical units to comply with the national ethical guidelines.

He uses the anecdote of the "very generous" sperm donor to emphasise that when people are excluded from access to reproductive technology, it forces them to go it alone, and have children outside the normal system.

Those children were born about a decade ago, meaning they will be reaching adolescence in the next few years.

"The effect of our regulations here in SA is that they produce unregulated donor conception, whereas a system with a lighter touch would bring a whole lot more parents and children into the light," Assoc Prof Dutney said.

"The situation at the moment is that ... by adhering to the SA legislation, clinics have to be in breach of the national code.

"Under SA's legislation, anonymity is guaranteed while under the national code of ethics, the child's access to knowledge has to be provided."

A different man's sperm was used to produce 29 children, most of whom are living in Adelaide. Again, they don't know they are related.

Leonie Hewitt is the mother of one of the children in Adelaide from the second example mentioned above. She is also the spokeswoman for the Sydney-based Donor Conception Support Group of Australia.

She says people need to recognise the "human rights" of the children in all of this.

"There needs to be consistent national legislation," she said.

"We need to protect people who are conceived through donations whether in straight or homosexual families, we need to protect those children.

"We need national harmonising legislation that protects human rights."

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