Gay Parents
IVF – Where governments provide funding for fatherless families
Fathers’ rights and shared parenting campaigners have for decades been fighting for the rights of children from separated families to be in the loving presence of both their biological parents.
It has been a hard fought battle which has seen only minor inroads being made, given the ferocious resistance from government funded women’s’ groups, who ironically had been set up in the first place to promote policies of equality amongst the sexes.
As many would know, Australia’s record on human rights had a significant setback last November 2011, when Australia’s world renowned Shared Parenting laws were watered down by the Australian Labor government, being replaced by a set of laws heavily laced with anti-fatherhood dogma, designed primarily to entrench a sole-mother, fatherless family unit post-divorce, regardless of the needs of the children or the qualities of the father.
Having said that, Shared Parenting is not out of the question, and a growing number of divorced mothers are ignoring the sexist overtures of the Gillard Labor government and opting for Shared Parenting arrangements post-divorce.
However, while Shared Parenting advocates continue to knock on the doors of open minded politicians lobbying for genuinely gender-neutral family laws in this country, an insidious, almost silent development has been occurring behind the scenes, a development that no-one ever voted for, and a development that has never been assessed in terms of whether it is in the best interests of the child.
Father stripped from birth certificate – replaced by lesbian co-parent
A man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple will have his name stripped from their child’s birth certificate after a successful legal bid by the birth mother’s ex-partner.
The woman took the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and biological father, to court in May to have his name replaced with her name in the document.
The female child was born in 2001 and the women split in 2006, although they continued to share parental responsibility.
The man also played a role in the child’s life.
NSW District Court Judge Stephen Walmsley today ruled in her favour, but expressed sympathy for the biological father.
Lesbian Mother to remove Father from child’s birth certificate
By Order of the District Court of New South Wales, we have been required to anonymise the names and identities of the persons involved in this case.
====
A man was so excited about the impending birth of his child 10 years ago he discussed building a home in the Blue Mountains for himself and the lesbian couple who had used his donated sperm to conceive.
The man, who can only be known by court order as BB, said they agreed he should be involved in his daughter’s life but exactly how was never decided.
After answering the couple’s advertisment in a magazine, BB said he provided sperm to the birth mother, paid $5000 for her fertility treatments at an Eastern suburbs clinic and paid for the midwife who managed the home birth of their daughter in 2001.
Ten years on, after a tumultuous relationship among the three parents, the woman’s ex-partner, AA, is taking the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages and BB to court to have his name removed from the girl’s birth certificate.
It is the first case of its kind since the introduction of a retrospective law in 2008 giving lesbian couples equal parenting responsibilities or legal status.
Of 94,354 birth registrations last year, 117 were for children born to same-sex parents.
BB said he had gone through “10 years of hell” and spent $50,000 on legal fees.
He has seen the girl for five hours a fortnight since she was one. He paid $150 a week support for her first year, though he was not obliged to, and paid one-third of her school fees for two years.
Last year he had allowed the birth mother, listed on the birth certificate as a funeral celebrant, to stay at his home for three months when she was unable to pay rent at her own home, he said.
The girl is the major beneficiary in his will and she calls his mother “Nan.”
He is devastated that he may be taken off the birth certificate.
“It’s a very depressing situation … the birth certificate is more than a bit of paper; it tells people who you are,” he said.
“No one seems to care about fathers these days.”
He said the three had been “all wrapped up in the moment of having the child” and were on good terms until the birth.
“I was going to build this great big house and live together … Everything was fine until the baby was born … they used me and they took my money and now they’ve got what they want, they really just didn’t want to know me.”
Both women have declined to comment.
A sperm donor does not have legal parenting responsibilities – and thus cannot make decisions about the child’s education or medical needs – even if a court grants visitation rights and he is on the birth certificate.
It is not possible under NSW law to have three parents with legal responsibilities. Had BB had sexual intercourse with the woman or married her, he would have gained that legal status.
Partners of lesbian mothers gained that right automatically with the introduction of the Miscellaneous Acts Amendment (Same Sex Relationships) Act 2008.
A family law expert, Paul Boers, said there was still confusion among gay and lesbian parents.
“I get lesbian couples concerned about whether the sperm donor might come back and seek parenting orders [to spend time with the child]. I tell them that he’s got to get over the hurdle of convincing a court that he’s concerned with the care, welfare and development of the child and he’s got an established relationship with the child.”
The case is set down for hearing on August 2.
investigations@smh.com.au
Gay dad granted rights of a parent: Nicholson’s (nee Maslow’s) Hierarchy of Family Rights
Editorial Note: Response to below article - This article refers to the emerging trend in surrogate adoptions, and this will clearly continue to be a thorny ethical issue in the nature of parenting, especially given the role of technology.
Gay Surrogate dads and parental rights
My concern with this article is not so much on the increasing role of non-biological gay parentage, which simply seems to be an extension of the step-parenting role.
I do however note the inconsistent legal application of the concept of “parental rights”, as evidenced in this judgment amongst others, when it comes to gay couples.
In Australia, the debate about Gay Adoption and Surrogacy has consistently focussed on the rights of gays, whereas typical Family Court matters apparently focus only on the best interests of the child.
It seems that where Human Rights on Parenting Matters are concerned, the Australian Courts have taken a decidedly hierarchical approach, quite possibly in unison with the trajectory originally determined by the very controversial and now discredited former Chief Justice of the Australian Family Court, Alastair Nicholson.
What seems to have developed is a type of pecking order, something along the lines of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Family Rights”, or perhaps most adequately named “Nicholson’s Hierarchy of Family Rights”.
It is clear that in this pecking order, unborn children are at the lowest possible eb, with effectively zero rights up until about 21 weeks. Biological fathers are next in line, not as far down as embryos, but close to the bottom in any event.
Children themsleves are located somewhere in the middle, with their rights being insrcibed in law only, given that most family law cases seem to be motivated by the rights of others.
Gays and Surrogate Mothers seem to be secondary on this list, with Gays edging out Surrogates in most recent cases, especially when Surrogates have no biological connection to the child they are carrying.
Top of the list are biological mothers, who seem to have an unassailable position in Family Rights, with the universally assigned and arrely challenged rights in abortion, child-custody and parental responsibility matters.
Nicholson’s Hierarchy of Family Rights
10. Embryos
9. Biological (gay and straight) Fathers
8. Step Mothers
7. Step Fathers
6. Adoptive Parents
5. Children
4 Grand Parents
3. Surrogate Mothers
2. Gay (non-biological) Parents
1. Biological Mothers
===================
A male GAY couple who paid a surrogate mother to carry twins has won a major case for parenting rights.
The case comes as overseas surrogacy booms, with 350 babies expected to be brought to Australia in 2011, compared to 50 babies just two years ago.
The Advertiser can reveal the parenting rights breakthrough hot on the heels of Nicole Kidman’s shock new surrogate baby revelation and the success of TV hit comedy Modern Family, which features a gay male couple with a baby girl.
The 20-month-old girls were born in Mumbai to an Indian woman who carried eggs from an anonymous donor impregnated with sperm from one of the Melbourne men.
The couple went to the Family Court seeking full parental status for the non-genetic male partner.
“In this case, the children do not have the benefit of a mother, but they have the good fortune of having two fathers,” Justice Paul Cronin found.
“As a matter of law, the word ‘parent’ tends to suggest some biological connection, but … biology does not really matter; it is all about parental responsibility.”
Lawyer Susan Buchanan, who represented the Melbourne men at the Family Court, said the ruling was important.
“Obviously, it’s a decision of public interest,” she said. “In the special circumstances of the case, it was the other parent who had no genetic link to the child, had no status in relation to the child – it … attributes to him full parental rights.”
Ms Buchanan said the decision could pave the way for other same-sex couples to win full parenting rights.
The decision was welcomed by surrogacy advocates.
“It’s a major step forward having that kind of judgment because it sets a precedent,” said Sam Everingham, of Australian Families Through Gestational Surrogacy.
“Any judge would have seen that this is a modern family made in a fairly unconventional way.”
But Catholic ethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini said surrogacy should be discouraged because a “committee of parents” – surrogate, donors and commissioning parents – confused children’s sense of identity.
The Family Court made “parenting orders” in three international surrogacy cases last year for two couples and one single man returning to Australia seeking citizenship for the newborns.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/gay-dad-granted-rights-of-a-parent/story-e6frea6u-1225992631847
Lesbian’s child custody battle with gay father
A lesbian mother and a gay man are fighting a bitter court battle over custody of their two children born by artificial insemination.
The woman, who is in a civil partnership, had two children with the man, a girl now aged seven and a boy nine, after he advertised in a gay magazine to become a father.
Earlier this year, a county court ruling gave the father permission to have his children live with him for 152 days a year. But the mother, who cannot be named, is challenging it at the Court of Appeal.
The father’s original 1999 ad in Gay Times stated he was solvent and had everything in his life but kids.
“I require little involvement. I have a lot to offer,” he added.
June Venters QC, told a panel of judges headed by the Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger, the residency order granted by a Brighton judge had marginalised the mother’s partner, who was regarded as a primary carer by the children.
She also argued her clients found the man, who has a long-term partner, domineering and controlling. Judgment was reserved to a later date.
Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/846568-lesbian-s-child-custody-battle-with-gay-father#ixzz14sEO6Gvq
