Comments on: Sperm Donor Given Access Rights http://www.gaelick.com/2009/12/sperm-donor-given-access-rights/5645/ an irish lesbian ezine Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:44:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: orange http://www.gaelick.com/2009/12/sperm-donor-given-access-rights/5645/comment-page-1/#comment-3042 orange Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:59:51 +0000 http://www.gaelick.com/?p=5645#comment-3042 And there you have it from the mouth of a Supreme Court Judge (according to The Irish Times, RTÉ and Breaking News.ie) and supported by four other Supreme Court judges: "The lesbian couple and the child are not a family under the Constitution of Ireland and therefore their relationship may not be weighed as such in the balance against the father of the child. There was also no institution of a "de facto family" in Ireland and the High Court had erred in its analysis of this." So gay people cannot form families in Ireland. And the families that do exist actually do not exist. I'm dumbfounded, furious and devastated by the audacity and ignorance of such statements. Legal spats over the definition of family and marriage do nothing to vindicate the position of the social realities faced members of these families. This case also highlights the urgent and long-overdue need for regulation of assisted reproduction in Ireland. And there's another decision due from the Supreme Court next week determining whether or not frozen embryos can be implanted in the egg-owner without the sperm-owner's consent. I'm not saying the State or the courts should get involved in every family dispute or incident of assisted reproduction but there needs to be some legal framework so that when people enter these agreements, they and the other party involved know exactly what they are signing up for. And there you have it from the mouth of a Supreme Court Judge (according to The Irish Times, RTÉ and Breaking News.ie) and supported by four other Supreme Court judges: “The lesbian couple and the child are not a family under the Constitution of Ireland and therefore their relationship may not be weighed as such in the balance against the father of the child. There was also no institution of a “de facto family” in Ireland and the High Court had erred in its analysis of this.” So gay people cannot form families in Ireland. And the families that do exist actually do not exist. I’m dumbfounded, furious and devastated by the audacity and ignorance of such statements. Legal spats over the definition of family and marriage do nothing to vindicate the position of the social realities faced members of these families.

This case also highlights the urgent and long-overdue need for regulation of assisted reproduction in Ireland. And there’s another decision due from the Supreme Court next week determining whether or not frozen embryos can be implanted in the egg-owner without the sperm-owner’s consent. I’m not saying the State or the courts should get involved in every family dispute or incident of assisted reproduction but there needs to be some legal framework so that when people enter these agreements, they and the other party involved know exactly what they are signing up for.

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