BY LALITHA CHELLIAH
MELBOURNE — The lesbian and gay community here organised a conference on August 27 to examine their reproductive rights and discuss reproductive law.
Dr Ruth McNair runs the Carlton clinic, which specialises in providing services to lesbians. NcNair is founder of the Lesbian Parenting Network and the convener of the Fertility Access Rights Lobby. She explained that a heterosexual couple would have the right to have semen tested for diseases before insemination, while a lesbian who self-inseminates is deprived of this basic right. Self-insemination is illegal.
Discussion moved to parenting without pregnancy. McNair said that research has shown that the important factors in child adjustment were quality of parenting, honesty, good communication and commitment. In the US, up to 14 million children live in families with at least one gay parent. Stability in these families was equal to heterosexual families.
Studies showed that gender was not a crucial factor in parenting. There was need for at least one responsible carer, but no evidence of gender identity confusion, confusion in sexual orientation or increased lesbian or gay tendencies.
Many co-parents are denied the right to care for their children if separated, because these rights are given by law to the genetic parent. The child may be removed from a stable, secure, loving and familiar setting to a strange and unstable situation, regardless of whether the donor parent wishes to have the child.
According to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act in Victoria, a child has to have a mother and father; the child has a right to know its parents. In Queensland, lesbian parents are recognised as a de facto couple, but not in Victoria.
The matter becomes become more complicated if a woman was raped or does not want the father's name on the birth certificate. Fines are imposed on mothers who refuse to name the father.
McBain stated that research has shown that up to 10% of named legal fathers are not the biological fathers of their children.
It was clear that most lesbians do not use the IVF service; the tendency was towards self-insemination because this was cheaper and there was no involvement of government instrumentalities. It was recognised that Victoria has a very conservative premier and a campaign has to be mounted to fight for the fundamental rights of lesbian and gay couples and single women who wish to be parents.
The Fertility Access Rights Lobby intends to campaign:
- supporting the Federal Court decision to invalidate the sections of the Infertility Treatment Act (1995) that exclude single women from reproductive services;
- opposing Howard's threat to weaken the federal Sex Discrimination Act;
- lobbying for changes to the Infertility Treatment Act (1995) to remove criminal sanctions on self-insemination;
- encourage the expansion of services within the health, legal and social sectors that assist lesbians and single women seeking pregnancy.