Final VLRC recomendations
The Victorian Law Reform Commission launched the final report and recommendations of its Enquiry into Assisted Reproductive Technology and Adoption at Parliament House on 7 June 2007.
Rainbow Families Council and the Love Makes a Family campaign welcomed the report as a very positive step towards recognising the rights of same-sex parented children, their families and same-sex and single prospective parents. We urged the Victorian Government to turn the recommendations into legislation as soon as practicable.
Based on our initial reading of only report's executive summary (check back on this site for updates once we've digested the 240 pages of the final report!) a brief summary of the key recommendations for rainbow families and prospective parents follows:
- access to Assisted Reproductive Technology for lesbian and single women
- adoption ("stranger") opened up to same sex couples and gay or lesbian single people
- second parent adoption available to gay men who have accessed surrogacy and for same sex couples whose relationships start after children have been born.
- recognition of non birth mother through simple means of changing the birth certificate and recommendations also supporting this for families with existing children before the law is changes.
- clarification that a donor is not a father (even if a Known Donor is used through a clinic or in home insemination)
- birth certificates to change to allow you to give the option of listing ‘parents’ instead of ‘mother’ or ‘father’ so 2 mums or 2 dads can be named.
- decriminalise home insemination and recommends that children conceived this way not to be treated differently in terms of parentage.
- gay men as known donors or identity-release clinic donors should only be asked questions relating to identifiable risk factors for STIs relevant to the process, not about their sexuality or sexual practices.
- The current six-month quarantine period for sperm storage should be changed to reflect current medical knowledge about risk factors.
- Clinic donors should not be permitted to specify the characteristics of unknown recipients of their donations ie should not be permitted to stop lesbians or single women being the recipients of their donations.
- Altruistic (non-commercial) surrogacy to be made available including for gay men who have a friend as a surrogate.
- The law should be changed to reflect that children may have two parents of the same sex.
You can read and download the executive summary and full report with its 130 recommendations on the Victorian Law Reform Commission website or ring 03 8619 8619 to request that a hard copy be mailed to you.
