What: Gay Dads Victoria – Discussion: Making decisions about childcare, kinder and school
When: 8 September 2009 – 6.00pm – 7.00pm
Where: Drummond Street Relationship Centre 195 Drummond St Carlton, VIC 3053, Australia
Review of the legal status of children being cared for by same-sex parents – August 2009
This is the paper from the Queensland Government on Surrogacy, and IVF issues and Same Sex parents, published yesterday.
Comments on the proposed changes to the parentage presumptions for same-sex
parents can be made before 18 September 2009:
• By email to: legalpolicysubmission@justice.qld.gov.au; or
• By writing to : Director, Strategic Policy, Department of Justice and
Attorney-General, GPO Box 149, Brisbane QLD 4001
This document is also available on the Department of Justice and Attorney-General
community consultation website: http://www.justice.qld.gov.au/33.htm
[Link: Original Document]
QUEENSLAND Labor MPs will be lobbied to vote down new laws allowing same-sex surrogacy arrangements.
Premier Anna Bligh has released a model for legal surrogacy in Queensland which is the only Australian state where altruistic surrogacy – where no money changes hands – is still illegal.
MPs will have a conscience vote on the laws, expected to go to parliament before the end of the year after public consultation.
Australian Christian Lobby Queensland director Peter Earle said same-sex surrogacy arrangements would deprive children of the complementary love and care of both a mother and a father.
Mr Earle said the Liberal National Party had given a commitment during the March state election campaign to oppose the laws.
"In the interests of children, we urge them to stick by these commitments, and we urge Labor … politicians to look to their consciences and follow suit," Mr Earle said in a statement.
"Children are not commodities and their interests should always come before the desires of adults."
But the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities said the announcement was welcome.
"We congratulate the government on bringing Queensland laws up to date with the rest of Australia," association general manager Paul Martin said.
"These changes, if implemented, will bring legal certainty to children of same-sex couples, allowing access to a share of a person’s estate or superannuation upon the death of a parent and providing both parents with the power to consent to medical treatment of the child."
But Mr Martin said the government needed to comprehensively overhaul the law, including civil partnerships and adoption for same-sex couples.
[Link: Original Article]
The Tasmanian Attorney-General is moving to officially recognise same-sex parents.
Victoria passed laws late last year allowing IVF babies to have two legally recognised mothers and the Tasmanian Government had a similar move blocked in the Upper House six years ago.
Tasmania’s Gay and Lesbian rights group says joint motherhood is now recognised in most states and territories and Tasmania should do the same.
The Attorney-General Lara Giddings has told State Parliament the change would remove discrimination and protect children in same-sex relationships.
"As the law stands the birth-mother is registered as the mother and the partner has no rights at law" said Ms Giddings.
"This bill will rectify that situation and put a same-sex partner in the same position as a male partner who has agreed to their partner becoming pregnant through ART."
The Liberals have been granted a conscience vote.
The Shadow Attorney-General Michael Hodgman said the bill is misguided.
"Here you have a situation where the two parents are of the same gender and with respect that is against the law of nature and legally an impossibility to me," said Mr Hodgman.
The Liberals’ Rene Hidding and Brett Whiteley will also oppose the bill.
Mr Hidding said it is a corruption of the meaning of parenthood.
[Link: Original Article]
SAME sex couples in Queensland will be allowed to become parents through altruistic surrogacy, Premier Anna Bligh has told parliament.
Ms Bligh this morning announced her government would legalise altruistic surrogacy for all Queenslanders, including same sex couples.
Queensland is one of the few jurisdictions where altrusitic surrogacy – where no money changes hands – remains illegal.
Miss Bligh told parliament the new laws would ensure children born through surrogacy would have the same rights as every child.
“We will do this because each and every Queenslander who wants to be a parent should be allowed the opportunity to do so,” Ms Bligh said.
“Anyone who is unable to conceive a baby but who wants to become a parent should know the joy of bringing a child into the world, providing them with life lessons, shaping their future and guiding them into adulthood.”
"At the end of the day, we want every child to be raised in a nurturing environment," she said.
Everyone … should be afforded the privileges of parenthood: Bligh (Reuters: Robert Galbraith)
The Queensland Government says same-sex couples will be included in changes to the state’s surrogacy laws.
Premier Anna Bligh has previously announced that altruistic surrogacy will be decriminalised, although commercial surrogacy will remain illegal.
Ms Bligh has told Parliament the new laws will be in place by the end of the year.
"I can advise the House that same-sex parents will be included among those who will be affected by the decriminalisation of surrogacy, because everyone – regardless of their sexual status or their gender – should be afforded the privileges of parenthood," she said.
This article which appeared in today’s Australian illustrates the issues of who is the legal parent in the cases of Surrogacy. It has particular relevance to same-sex parents.
A SYDNEY couple will have to apply to the NSW Supreme Court for permission to adopt their own son, after the Family Court found that, in the eyes of the law, he was not theirs.
Judge Garry Watts last week ruled that the boy’s biological mother — the woman who provided the egg and has raised him since birth — is legally his stepsister, while his biological father — who provided the sperm and has likewise raised him since birth, is legally his stepbrother-in-law.
The court ruled that the boy’s mother is the woman who carried him in her womb: that is, his grandmother. His father, at least in the legal sense, is his grandmother’s de facto, a man named Clive, who has no biological connection to him.
Justice Watts admitted that these results were "surprising" to all parties but came about because surrogacy law in NSW hadn’t kept pace with science.
The issue last made headlines in 2006, when Senator Stephen Conroy announced that he and his wife had travelled from Victoria to NSW to enter into a surrogacy arrangement with a host mother, using sperm from Senator Conroy and an egg donated by a family friend.
THE new head of the Australian Medical Association has said single women and gay couples should not have access to IVF.
Dr Andrew Pesce, elected AMA federal president in May, told the Sunday Herald Sun that IVF should not be a "lifestyle choice" and use of the treatment by same sex couples went against the "natural order".
"Fertility treatment is there to treat diseases that cause infertility, it shouldn’t be there as a lifestyle choice," Dr Pesce said.
"For example, single women (who choose IVF) don’t have a disease, they just don’t have a partner. Same-sex couples, they don’t have disease but they are using an option that gets around the natural order of things."Dr Pesce later contacted this newspaper and said his comments were "clumsy" and a mistake.
He said single women and same sex couples should have access to IVF, but could not give a reason for his earlier remarks.
The comments have thrown the AMA into crisis, with former president Dr Kerryn Phelps saying Dr Pesce’s views were "not rational".
