Tag: reproductive laws

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India Bars Same-Sex Couples From Using Surrogates

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Officials from India’s government announced that gay couples and single individuals from other countries who wish to start a family are prohibited from using the country’s popular surrogate program, New Delhi Television Limited reports.

India’s surrogacy program is a growing industry. Over the past few years, foreign couples, both gay and straight, have taken advantage of the country’s low-cost and legally simple way to access a surrogate. The new measure, however, not only bars same-sex couples from using the surrogates but also leaves gay couples who already started the process in limbo.

The new rules state that only straight couples who have been married for more than two years can use India’s surrogacy program. Notified by the change from a message on the Indian Home Ministry’s website, fertility clinics and LGBT rights activists termed the move “discriminatory”.

“It’s totally unfair – not only for gay people but for people who are not married who may have been living together for years and for singles,” Mumbai gay rights advocate Nitin Karani said.

“Parenting is everybody’s right and now we’re withdrawing that right,” Dr. Rita Bakshi, who is the head of the International Fertility Centre in New Delhi, said. “These rules are definitely not welcome, definitely restrictive and very discriminatory.” Read full article.

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Kan. case reveals risks with assisted reproduction

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The case of a Kansas sperm donor being sued by the state for child support underscores a confusing patchwork of aging laws that govern assisted reproduction in the United States and often lead to litigation and frustration among would-be parents.

Complex questions about parental responsibility resurfaced late last year, as Kansas officials went after a Topeka man who answered a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple seeking a sperm donor. Because no doctor was involved in the artificial insemination, the state sought to hold William Marotta financially responsible for the child when the women split up and one of them sought public assistance. A hearing is set for April.

Many states haven’t updated their laws to address the evolution of family structures — such as same-sex families, single women conceiving with donated sperm or artificial inseminations performed without a doctor’s involvement. At-home insemination kits are inexpensive, and obtaining sperm from a friend, or even a donor met over the Internet, allows women to avoid medical costs that generally aren’t covered by insurance. Read full article.

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Oklahoma City doctor says emergency contraception not abortion

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There’s a difference between the drugs that induce a medical abortion and those used in emergency contraception, or the morning-after pill, an Oklahoma City doctor said this past week.

“Emergency contraception, first and foremost, is not an abortifacient,” Dr. Andrea Palmer, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Lakeside Women’s Hospital, said. “It is not going to dislodge or disrupt an already implanted pregnancy. It’s not something that is going to cause an implanted pregnancy to no longer be implanted or to abort.”

Whether emergency contraceptive pills can cause abortions has been a contentious fight since the pills first came onto the market.

Emergency contraceptive pills have been around since the 1970s, according to a study published in the Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception journal. Plan B and ella are two examples of emergency contraceptive pills currently available in the U.S.  Read full article.

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First ‘personhood’ bill of session is filed

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Personhood BillOKLAHOMA CITY – One of last year’s most emotional issues for the Oklahoma Legislature apparently will be revisited this spring, with at least one “personhood” bill already filed for the session that begins Feb. 4.

“Personhood,” a concept popular among abortion-rights opponents, holds that individual rights and constitutional protections begin at conception.

State Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, is the author of House Bill 1029, the Personhood Act of 2013. As written, the bill appears to be virtually identical to one that led to a bitter fight in the House of Representatives before it failed to get a vote on the floor.

A resolution with the same language as the bill but without the force of law did pass in the House, with several personhood supporters condemning it as a sellout. Read full article.

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Court: Ind. man must support kids by sperm donor

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MUNCIE, Ind. — An appeals court ruled Tuesday that a man whose then-wife conceived two children using the sperm of a family friend must provide financial support for the youngsters.

The Indiana Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld an earlier ruling by Delaware Circuit Court 4 Judge John Feick that the children — born in 2004 and 2006, respectively — each qualify as a “child of marriage.”

When the husband filed for divorce in Feick’s court in October 2010, he acknowledged that “two children were born to (his spouse)” during their nine-year marriage, but said they were not his “biological children” and that he should not be held responsible for their financial support.

In its Tuesday ruling, the appeals court said after the couple married in 2001, they discussed having children, and were told by a physician that an effort to reverse the husband’s earlier vasectomy would likely be unsuccessful. Read full article.

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Court lifts cloud over embryonic stem cells

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embryonic stem cellsThe US Supreme Court’s decision last week to throw out a lawsuit that would have blocked federal funding of all research on human embryonic stem cells cleared the gloom that has hung over the field for more than three years. Yet the biggest boost from the decision might go not to work on embryonic stem (ES) cells, but to studies of their upstart cousins, induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are created by ‘reprogramming’ adult cells into a stem-cell-like state.

At first glance, iPS-cell research needs no help. Researchers flocked to the field soon after a recipe for deriving the cells from adult mouse cells was announced in 2006, partly because this offered a way to skirt the thorny ethical issues raised by extracting cells from human embryos. But the real allure of iPS cells was the promise of genetically matched tissues. Adult cells taken from a patient could be used to create stem cells that would, in turn, generate perfectly matched specialized tissues — replacement neurons, say — for cell therapy. Although the number of published papers from iPS-cell research has not yet caught up with that of ES-cell work (see ‘Inducing a juggernaut’), US funding for each approach is now roughly matched at about US$120 million a year. Read full article.

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Va. Supreme Court sides with sperm-donor father

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia law concerning sperm donation was not intended to deny parental rights to a man who conceived a daughter with his girlfriend through in-vitro fertilization, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The court ruled that the law, which says unmarried sperm donors have no parental rights, had been intended to ensure married couples could seek a sperm donor without fearing the donor would claim parental rights.

The decision was a victory for Virginia Beach attorney William D. Breit, who is seeking enforcement of a custody and visitation agreement he and his former girlfriend signed shortly after the birth of a daughter who was conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The couple signed the agreement as well as an affidavit establishing Breit as the biological father. Read full article.

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Woman Wins Custody of Frozen Embryos

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A Maryland woman has gained custody of nine frozen embryos she created with her ex-husband, according to an attorney working on the case.

Godlove Mbah of Greenbelt and his ex-wife, Honorine Anong of Upper Marlboro, were divorced in May 2012, but disputes have continued over the couple’s stored embryos and a 3-year-old daughter previously conceived from one their embryos.

Though Mbah asked to have them destroyed, according to The Daily Record, Maryland Circuit Court Judge John Paul Davey signed an order in December giving sole custody of the embryos to Anong—a first-of-its-kind ruling in Maryland.

Davey found that the commercial contract the couple signed at the Shady Grove Fertility Clinic in July 2008—prior to the procedure—was valid, according to attorneys involved in the case.

That contract said the embryos would be given to Anong in case of a separation. Nataly Mendocilla, Mbah’s attorney, argued that her client’s signature wasn’t notarized. Read full article.

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Judge rules for Domino’s Farms in contraception coverage case

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Detroit — The founder of Domino’s Pizza won’t be subject to a new federal health care law requiring contraception coverage for employees while a lawsuit he filed challenging the new mandate is pending, a judge has ruled.

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff on Thursday granted an emergency motion by Tom Monaghan to temporarily halt the enforcement of the federal Health and Human Services mandate.

Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, and the Domino’s Farms Corp. sued the federal government, alleging the law violates their rights and asking the court to strike it down.

“It was the best case scenario for us,” said Erin Mersino of the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center, the lead attorney on Monaghan’s case. “It was a favorable opinion, and we are very happy for our clients.”

The lawsuit is among 11 others nationwide challenging the new mandate that became law in August.

Zatkoff’s ruling halts enforcement of the mandate against Monaghan and his property management company, of which he is the sole owner and shareholder.

Domino’s Farms Corp. manages an office complex owned by Monaghan and is not affiliated with Domino’s Pizza. Monaghan sold the pizza company in 1998.

If any of the courts rule the preventative care provision in the federal health care act is unconstitutional, it would not eliminate the law, but force Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to retool it. Read full article.

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Activists: Topeka sperm donor case opportunity for change

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By Aly Van Dyke

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

As divisive as Kansas’ child support claim against a sperm donor to a lesbian couple is, activists on both sides of the issue can agree on a couple of things: first, that the case is an opportunity for change, and second, that its implications reach beyond same sex unions.

Organizations that support gay and lesbian rights say the claim is politically motivated but can be used as an opportunity to give rights to same sex partners.

For conservative groups, it is a chance for Kansas to reinforce its laws protecting traditional marriage. They offered arguments about how same sex parenthood is damaging to the children to such unions and supported the state’s claim against sperm donor William Marotta, 46.

But both sides said the issue currently set before the Shawnee County District Court goes beyond the usual arguments surrounding the legalization of gay marriage in America. It deals with adoption and the relatively untouched issue of artificial insemination — and, as such, has implications for heterosexual couples as well. Read full article.