Category: In the News

EU top court told same-sex spouses have residence rights

PFLAGLI

international surrogacy

EU – A senior adviser to the European Union’s top court has backed a Romanian gay man’s right to have his US husband live with him in Romania.

EU countries should recognise the right of all spouses to residency even if they do not allow gay marriage, according to the advocate general for the European Court of Justice.

Same-sex marriage is not legal in Romania.gay rights

Adrian Coman and Clai Hamilton, an American, married in Brussels in 2010.

What is the case about?

EU law permits a non-EU spouse of an EU citizen to join his or her spouse in the member state where the European national resides.

But the Romanian authorities refused a request for a residence permit for Mr Hamilton, saying he could not be recognised as the spouse of an EU citizen because Romanian legislation prohibits marriages between same-sex couples.

The couple challenged the decision, saying it was discriminatory on the grounds of sexual orientation. Romania’s constitutional court then referred the case to the European court (ECJ).

What is the advice?

ECJ Advocate General Melchior Wathelet said the term “spouse” included, under the freedom of residence of EU citizens and their family members, spouses of the same sex.

“Although member states are free to authorise marriage between persons of the same sex or not, they may not impede the freedom of residence of an EU citizen by refusing to grant his or her spouse of the same sex, a national of a non-EU country, a right of permanent residence in their territory,” he said.

BBCNews.com, January 11, 2018

Click here to read the entire article.

The post EU top court told same-sex spouses have residence rights appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

Landmark ruling recognizes marriage, trans rights in the Americas

PFLAGLI

Americas

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Tuesday issued a landmark ruling that recognizes same-sex marriage and transgender rights in the Western Hemisphere – the Americas.

Americas – The seven judges who issued the ruling stated governments “must recognize and guarantee all the rights that are derived from a family bond between people of the same sex.” Six of the seven judges also agreed that it is necessary for governments “to guarantee access to all existing forms of domestic legal systems, including the right to marriage, in order to ensure the protection of all the rights of families formed by same-sex couples without discrimination.”marital trust

The court issued its ruling after the Costa Rican government in 2016 asked for an advisory opinion on whether it has an obligation to extend property rights to same-sex couples and allow transgender people to change their name and gender marker on identity documents.

The ruling says the Costa Rican government must allow trans people to legally change their name and gender marker on official documents.

It does not specifically say how Costa Rica should extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. Costa Rican Vice President Ana Helena Chacón on Tuesday nevertheless told reporters during a press conference in the Costa Rican capital of San José that her government will do so.

“The Executive Branch will focus on studying the resolution in depth,” she said as La Nación, a Costa Rican newspaper, reported.

The Organization of American States created the Costa Rica-based court in 1979 in order to enforce provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights. Tuesday’s ruling is legally binding in Costa Rica and 19 other countries throughout the Western Hemisphere that currently recognize the convention.

Margarita Salas, a Costa Rican LGBT rights advocate who is a candidate for the country’s National Assembly — described the ruling to the Washington Blade as an “enormous advance in human rights for Costa Rica.”

“Now more than ever it is imperative that the National Assembly pass bills that make access to marriage equality and the recognition of gender identity a reality,” she said.

The Washington Blade, by Michael Lavers – January 9, 2018

Click here to read the entire article.

The post Landmark ruling recognizes marriage, trans rights in the Americas appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

Colorado Supreme Court to weigh if one parent has the right to use frozen embryos if the other objects

PFLAGLI

anonymous egg donor

During three emotional days of divorce talks, Drake and Mandy Rooks managed to agree on how to divide up almost every aspect of their old lives down to the last piece of furniture. Only one thing remained: the frozen embryos.

There were six of them, created from his sperm and her eggs, and they had been left over from when the couple had gone through in vitro fertilization some years earlier.

The couple had had three children using the technology, and Drake was done. He didn’t want any more children in general, and certainly not with Mandy. She felt differently. She had always imagined a large family and, given her trouble getting pregnant, she thought the embryos were her only hope for having more babies. She wanted them preserved.

The dispute is one of a number of embryo-custody battles that have landed in the courts over the past quarter-century, resolved by different judges in different states with no consistent pattern. Rulings sometimes have awarded the frozen contents to the parent who wanted to use them, while other times determining that they could be discarded.

On Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Rookses’ case. Although several other cases have made their way to states’ high courts, legal experts say the issues here are different.donor conceived

“Constitution questions are front and center in a way that they have not been in the other cases,” said Harvard law professor Glenn Cohen. And if the judges decide the Rookses’ dispute on such grounds, that would allow it to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court – where a ruling would apply nationwide.

Cohen said the central issue focuses on how to balance one person’s constitutional right to procreate with another’s countervailing constitutional right to not procreate. The question parallels similar arguments used in other reproductive health cases, namely the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 abortion decision in Roe v. Wade. If women have the right to not be forced to be a gestational parent, do men – or women – have the right not to be forced to be a genetic parent?

Absolutely, says Drake Rooks, 50. “It just seems like a guy should be able to decide whether he wants more children or not and with whom,” he said in an interview last week.

Mandy Rooks, who is 10 years his junior, flips the argument and comes to the opposite conclusion. “No one,” she said in an emailed statement, “has the right to tell me that I have to kill my offspring.”

By | The Washington Post – January 8, 2018

Click here to read the entire article.

The post Colorado Supreme Court to weigh if one parent has the right to use frozen embryos if the other objects appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

India Supreme Court to reconsider controversial sodomy ruling

PFLAGLI

Indian Supreme Court

The India Supreme Court on Monday said it would reconsider its controversial 2013 ruling that recriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.

The Hindustan Times reported Chief Justice Dipak Misra and two other judges said the decision on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was based on what it described as “the perception of majority and concept of social morality.”Indian Supreme Court

“Concept of consensual sex may have more priority than a group right and may require more protection,” said the judges, according to the Hindustan Times. “A section of people or individual who exercise their choice should never live in a state of fear.”

The Delhi High Court in 2009 struck down the country’s colonial-era sodomy law. The Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling overturned it.

Indian lawmakers in late 2015 rejected a bill that would have repealed Section 377.

India is among the more than 70 countries around the world in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.

The Washington Blade by Michael Lavers, January 8, 2018

Click here to read the entire article.

The post India Supreme Court to reconsider controversial sodomy ruling appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

U.S. Supreme Court Leaves Intact Mississippi Law Curbing Gay Rights

PFLAGLI

gay family law

The U.S. Supreme Court left intact a Mississippi law that lets businesses and government workers refuse on religious grounds to provide services to gay and transgender people.

The justices turned away two appeals by state residents and organizations that contended the measure violates the Constitution. A federal appeals court said the opponents hadn’t suffered any injury that would let them press their claims in court.homophobia

The Mississippi fight in some ways represented the flip side of a Colorado case the high court is currently considering; the question in that instance is whether the state can require a baker who sells wedding cakes to make one for a same-sex couple’s wedding.

The cases are testing states’ ability to regulate what happens when LGBT rights come into conflict with religious freedoms. Colorado is aiming to bolster gay rights by enforcing an anti-discrimination law, even though the Denver-area baker says he has a religious objection to same-sex marriage.

Bloomberg.com, January 8, 2018 by Greg Stohr

Click here to read the entire article.

The post U.S. Supreme Court Leaves Intact Mississippi Law Curbing Gay Rights appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

Surrogacy still big business in China despite national ban

PFLAGLI

China Ban

Driven by demand and in defiance of the law, China’s surrogacy service is booming with countless women making a living by offering their wombs for hire.

A two-month investigation by The Paper, a state-run news website, offered a glimpse of the underground business luring women in rural villages away from their factory jobs to carry others’ fertilised eggs to birth despite the China ban on surrogacy.China Ban

Couples pay anywhere between £40,000 to £114,000 for surrogacy, with agents claiming that they can guarantee the gender of the baby by testing the sex of the embryo or aborting babies of the unwanted sex, both of which are illegal practices in China.

“I make 3,000 yuan [£340] a month from a factory job,” a masked and visibly pregnant woman said while being filmed by a hidden camera. “But I get nearly as much in living expenses [from being a surrogate].”

Another pregnant woman said: “You can make more than 100,000 yuan [£11,400] from each birth, something I would never be able to make in my whole life.”

Because surrogacy is illegal in China, there is no definitive report on the scope of the black market. However, two factors appear to be driving the surge in demand. An estimated 15 million Chinese couples are thought to be infertile, a statistic blamed by some on pollution. Also, couples who have been trying for a second child since the country relaxed its one-child policy have found it hard to conceive because of their older age.

Other Chinese families want another baby after losing an only child. Last month, a 48-year-old woman gave birth to twins through IVF after her only child, a 24-year-old firefighter, died in an explosion in 2015. In 2010 a 60-year-old woman delivered twin girls after losing her adult daughter to gas poisoning.

The demand has left many hospitals overcrowded with couples seeking fertility treatments, which are legal in China. When this does not work, they turn to underground channels or go abroad for surrogacy.

The unregulated market is full of risks for both couples seeking the service and surrogate mothers, especially if a pregnancy goes wrong or if children are born with disabilities.

Still a conservative society, China frowns upon anyone using their body to make money. However, lured by the generous pay, poor Chinese women are increasingly being drawn to the business, especially after learning that they can make the money without having to sleep with the clients.

thetimes.co.uk by Didi Tang, January 1, 2018

Click here to read the entire article.

The post Surrogacy still big business in China despite national ban appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

Swiss Gays and lesbians can now adopt stepchildren

PFLAGLI

Swiss gay

From January 1, same-sex couples and de facto spouses may adopt stepchildren in Switzerland.

In addition, the secrecy surrounding adoption will be loosened so adopted children and their biological parents will be able to get in contact more easily. Swiss gay

Until now, only married people have been able to adopt their spouses’ children. In Switzerland, homosexuals have been able to enter into a civil partnership since 2007, but gay marriage is not recognised. From 2018 however, adoption will be possible for anyone in a civil partnership or a longterm relationship. 

Swiss law will thus align itself closer to that of other western European countries and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. 

That said, a couple in a civil partnership will still be unable to adopt a child who is biologically unrelated to both parents. This means that a gay person can adopt if single, but not when in a civil partnership. 

The adoption option was deliberately left out of the nationwide vote on approving civil partnerships for gays in 2005 in order to increase the chances of success. 

December 26, 2017 via SwissInfo.ch

By Sibilla Bondolfi

Click here to read the entire article.

The post Swiss Gays and lesbians can now adopt stepchildren appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

Court Rejects Gay Singapore Man’s Bid To Adopt Biological Son

PFLAGLI

Singapore gay

Local LGBTQ rights advocates said they were dismayed by the decision.

A Singapore court has rejected a gay Singaporean doctor’s bid to adopt his biological child because he was born by a surrogate mother in the United States through a procedure not available for unmarried couples in the island state.Singapore gay

Singapore is in many ways a vibrant, modern society but it remains socially conservative and sex between consenting males is a punishable crime with a maximum penalty of two years in jail, although prosecution is rare.

Singapore is also trying to boost fertility among its citizens, and offers generous incentives to couples to have babies, but in-vitro fertilization is allowed only for married couples and surrogacy services are not available for anyone.

The man, in a homosexual relationship with a partner, paid $200,000 for a woman to carry his child through in-vitro fertilization in the United States after he had learned he was unlikely to be able to adopt a child in Singapore as a gay man.

A Singapore court ruled against his bid to adopt the child this week saying the steps he had taken to have the baby in the United States would not have been possible in Singapore.

“He cannot then come to the courts of the very same jurisdiction to have the acts condoned,” the court said.

“This application is in reality an attempt to obtain a desired result … by walking through the back door of the system when the front door was firmly shut.”

Reuters – by John Geddie, December 26, 2017

Click here to read the entire article.

The post Court Rejects Gay Singapore Man’s Bid To Adopt Biological Son appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

Couples win lawsuit over donated eggs with genetic defect

PFLAGLI

genetic defect

Two couples that gave birth to children with a genetic defect later traced to donated eggs won a lawsuit against a New York fertility doctor and his clinic in the state’s highest court Thursday.

The two children, both born in 2009, have Fragile X syndrome, a genetic condition that can lead to intellectual and developmental impairments. The parents, identified by initials and last names in legal papers, were told the egg donors were screened for genetic conditions.genetic defect

The parents are seeking legal damages for the added expenses of raising a disabled child. The amount of the damages was not set by the court and will likely be determined in further legal proceedings.

The case hinged on the state’s medical malpractice statute of limitations, which bars lawsuits filed more than two and a half years after the alleged act of malpractice — or the patient’s last treatment by the physician.

The lawsuits were filed two years after the children were born, when the condition became apparent, but more than two and a half years following the final treatment at the clinic. The egg donors were tested after the children were born and found to be carriers of the Fragile X mutation, according to court filings

Attorneys for the Reproductive Medicine Associates clinic and physician Alan Copperman argued the suit was filed too late, because the statute of limitations began counting down when the women ended fertility treatment after becoming pregnant, and not when the children were born or when the genetic abnormality was diagnosed.

December 14, 2017 – AP via New York Daily News

Click here to read the entire article.

The post Couples win lawsuit over donated eggs with genetic defect appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families

A judge said an anonymous sperm donor is a boy’s real parent & not his lesbian mom

PFLAGLI

anonymous donor

A lesbian mom is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to rule that she is the legal parent of a child that her ex-wife conceived through artificial insemination.

Christina Strickland and Kimberly Strickland Day married in 2009 in Massachusetts. Kimberly already had a child that she adopted in 2007, and she and Christina wanted another child.

They decided that Kimberly would be the one to get pregnant, and they used a sperm donor.anonymous donor

In 2015, their relationship had ended and Kimberly got married to a man and told Christina that she couldn’t see their child, Z.S., anymore. Christina sued to have Kimberly’s second marriage annulled (since the two women never divorced) and to get divorced. She sought 50-50 custody with Kimberly.

Earlier this year, a lower court judge ruled that Christina would have to pay child support and could have visitation rights, but that she wasn’t legally Z.S.’s parent.

“The court finds two women cannot conceive a child together,” county court judge John Grant wrote in his ruling. “The court doesn’t find its opinion to be a discriminatory statement, but a biological fact.”

He said that Z.S. already has two parents – Kimberly and Donor No. 2687 – so making Christina a parent would violate Donor No. 2687’s parental rights.

Grant insisted that the women should have terminated Donor No. 2687’s parental rights and that the donor’s waiver of parental rights wasn’t entered into the record in time. Even though no one knows Donor No. 2687’s identity, Grant said that Christina should have issued a public notice so that Donor No. 2687 could have asserted his parental rights if he wanted to.

In Mississippi, as in many other states, a mother’s spouse is automatically listed as a baby’s other parent on their birth certificate. But Z.S. was born before same-sex marriage was recognized in Mississippi, so while Christina was the baby’s parent in reality, legally she wasn’t.

by Alex Bollinger, LGBTQNation.com, December 11, 2017

Click here to read the entire article.

The post A judge said an anonymous sperm donor is a boy’s real parent & not his lesbian mom appeared first on Time For Families.


Source: Time for Families