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Govt commits to reforms on ART and Surrogacy on 14 Dec 2007 |
| Posted on Jul 16 2008 |
Here is the full text from the Victorian Government's media release,
from Friday 14 December 2007
NEW LAWS ON ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY AND SURROGACY
The State Government will update its 20-year-old laws on assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy to bring Victoria into line with other states and better reflect the reality of modern families.
Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls said the reforms would better protect children and provide certainty for Victorian families.
“The reality is that many Victorian children are already born to same-sex couples and to single women and yet those children don’t enjoy the same legal protections as others,” Mr Hulls said.
“In most other states, same-sex couples and single women have had access to assisted reproductive technology for years but Victoria is lagging behind. Our laws in this area are out of date and have been found to breach Federal discrimination laws.
“These reforms provide a legal framework for what is already occurring in the community.”
The changes will be based on the recommendations of the Victorian Law Reform Commission report on Assisted Reproductive Technology and Adoption, which also dealt with laws relating to surrogacy. The VLRC consulted extensively over a four year period in preparing its report.
The Government will implement the Commission’s recommendations on assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy, subject to working through practical implementation issues.
The Government rejected a recommendation to amend donor information laws to prevent donors obtaining information about their offspring unless their child initiates an inquiry or in other specified circumstances.
In addition, the Commission’s recommendations on adoption will be referred to the Ministerial Council of Community Services Ministers for further consideration in light of broader issues facing adoption services across the country.
The Government’s interdepartmental committee will continue to advise it on practical implementation issues, including the timing and detail of legislation.
The proposed new laws will:
- Ensure that people who need medical help to have a baby will not be forced to travel interstate for treatment because of their relationship status;
- Require a review panel to screen people seeking treatment in a clinic if they have had charges proven against them for a sexual offence, been convicted of a violent offence, or had a child protection order made against them;
- Change surrogacy arrangements so access to treatment is based on the problems the commissioning parents are having trying to conceive a child rather than the existing law that applies a test of clinical infertility to the surrogate mother;
- Allow commissioning parents in a surrogacy arrangement to apply to be recognised as the child’s legal parents if the surrogate mother consents and a court considers it in the best interests of the child;
- Ensure that commercial surrogacy continues to be prohibited in Victoria, while altruistic, or non-commercial, surrogacy will continue to be carefully regulated with each arrangement needing approval by a committee of experts;
- Allow the female partner of the child’s mother to be recognised as a parent of a child conceived using treatment;Clarify that sperm and egg donors are not the legal parents of a child conceived through assisted reproductive technology; and
- Allow the posthumous use of gametes only with the express written consent of the deceased and in the context of a pre-existing relationship.
“Our laws need to keep pace with advances in medical technology and changing family structures,” Mr Hulls said. “These are commonsense reforms designed to protect the best interests of children – legally, medically and socially.”
The Government asked the Commission to review Victoria’s laws in 2002 following a Federal Court decision in the McBain case which found Victoria’s laws were inconsistent with the Federal Sex Discrimination Act.
The Commission’s report found that Victoria’s regulation of assisted reproductive technology had failed to keep pace with the emergence of new families and developments in reproductive technology and was out of step with other states.
It said that parental capacity was based on good parenting skills rather than relationship status or sexual orientation.
Community Services Minister Lisa Neville said the Commission identified the best interests of the child as the paramount consideration in relation to assisted reproductive technology, surrogacy and adoption.
She said there were anomalies in our current laws that needed to be fixed. “Where women cannot access treatment in Victoria, children are being conceived either interstate or through informal arrangements without the health protections that licensed and regulated clinics offer in a safe environment,” Ms Neville said.
Under the reforms, people accessing treatment will receive extensive counselling to determine if treatment should proceed and to ensure that prospective parents fully understand their obligations to any child born as a result of assisted reproductive technology.
Mr Hulls said the laws would also ensure stronger legal protection for children by recognising different family arrangements. “At the moment, the female partner of a child’s mother has no legal status as a parent, even though she has consented to the treatment by which the child was born,” he said.
“This means that in many cases she can’t consent to emergency medical treatment if the child has an accident at school. The child is not entitled in the same way as other children to compensation in the event of the partner’s death or injury or to the same protections under the Family Law Act.”
The change to access to assisted reproductive technology in Victoria will not affect current Medicare arrangements which provide rebates for certain treatments only where diagnosed clinical infertility is involved.
 Rainbow Families Council 2010 Federal Election statement | downloads: 9 | type: pdf | size: 157 kB |
| Federal inquiry into donor conception - RFC information sheet | downloads: 8 | type: pdf | size: 807 kB |
Rainbow Families Council's suggestions for responding to the federal inquiry |
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| Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority News July 2010 | downloads: 13 | type: pdf | size: 61 kB |
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