Thursday, October 09, 2008

ONE HURDLE DOWN

From The Age newspaper today:

The lower house has voted 47 to 34 in support of the contentious Assisted Reproductive Treatment bill, which will now be scrutinised in the Upper House.

If passed by the Legislative Council the legislation will grant single and lesbian women access to reproductive treatment, including IVF.

Among those celebrating was Rainbow Families Council spokeswoman Felicity Marlowe, who has a two-month-old daughter Maude and lives in a same-sex relationship.

"What we've seen is a really sensible debate, unfortunately of course there are some people who have very diverse views about what a real family is or what constitutes good parenting but overall we've seen a really positive outcome," Ms Marlowe said.

"For families like mine that are same sex parented families it would mean better legal certainty for our children about who our parents are, better legal obligations for their non-birth parents and more rights bestowed upon them.

"What we'd be really wanting to see is that people understand that the spirit of this bill is that the rights and best interests of children are upheld and we believe that voting in favour of it in the upper house will ensure that our children are not second class citizens."

Congratulations to Felicity who has worked hard to make sure local Members of Parliament were emailed or visited by rainbow families.

3 comments:

River said...

See previous comment......

Lord Sedgwick said...

Noticed this on the Yabby Sea site'

"Victorian MPs pass lesbian fertility bill."

Dare I say (nay, insist) that some of my best friends are lesbianese, but I doubt that any of them can afford to pay said bill.

... and the only things that have passed the Victorian parliament are things that need to go via Weribee's version of Britta filters.

JahTeh said...

Sedgwick, somebody must do something about Declan and his composing.