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Baby Steps: New Law Clarifies Status of Sperm Donors, Egg Donors, Surrogate Mothers; Says Child Can Have More than Two Parents

11/9/2013

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Finally, the law offers certainty to queers who want to become parents.
For prospective queer parents, a donation of sperm or eggs is a necessity.  Gay dads, couples with a trans parent, or infertile lesbians also need a surrogate (a woman who will carry the child).


Sperm donors can be either known (the "turkey baster method") or unknown, with sperm from a clinic.  Eggs have to be extracted by a clinic.  A surrogacy arrangement can either be made through a clinic, or through a friend who will bear a child and then give the child to the child's parent(s) to raise.

Till now, it was unclear whether a donor (of sperm, for example) did or could have any parental rights or responsibilities under the law.

If a child was born with the use of a surrogate, it was necessary to get a court order declaring the intended parents to be the legal parents of the child.

And although two co-mothers could register at birth and be on a child's birth certificate, an adoption or a declaration of parentage was required before the comother was a full legal parent of her child.

And the maximum number of parents a child could have was two.

All that has changed.

The new Family Law Act
    -    spells out that donors are NOT "parents", unless they are using the donated material to create a child that they will themselves raise, or unless the donor has a parenting agreement with the child's other parent(s)
    -    says that intended parents can be registered after the birth of a child by a surrogate mother, without a court order
    -    says that a child can have more than two legal parents, provided that all the people intending to parent sign an agreement to do so before the child is conceived.  A child's birth certificate would then list all those parents.

For a detailed discussion of the provisions, check out the paper that Zara Suleman and I wrote for the Continuing Legal Education Society:  Baby Steps:  Assisted Reproduction and the Family Law Act

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Southpaws - what you have always known

12/5/2012

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Picture
I'm sure you have noticed that more of your friends are left handed than you would expect...well, it's true.
A Canadian study found that if you are queer, you are much more likely than heterosexuals to be left-handed.  And the association is stronger for lesbians.  In fact, if you are gay, you are 34% more likely to be left handed; if you are lesbians, 91% more likely!  Ray Blanchard, one of the authors of the study published in the Psychology Bulletin, says that this is evidence that at least some part of your sexual orientation is genetically or biologically determined, perhaps in the womb.
  Thanks to Gay Today and Jesse's blog for this tidbit.


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