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Reform targets children's best interests

Thursday 7 June 2007

The Victorian Law Reform Commission’s Assisted Reproductive Technology & Adoption: Final Report was tabled in parliament today. It contains 130 recommendations to create a new legislative framework that will be flexible enough to cope with evolving technologies and practices and protect the best interests of children.

The recommendations are part of a comprehensive review of the laws governing access to fertility treatment clinics, recognition of parental status, sperm and egg donations, access to information about donors, access to adoption, surrogacy, and using people’s sperm and eggs after they die.

Children born through altruistic surrogacy arrangements and to same-sex couples would have their parents legally recognised under the recommendations.

“Victorians are currently having children through arrangements that are not recognised by the law and this disadvantages the children in a whole range of areas,” commissioner Iain Ross said.

“We’re recommending the law be changed to keep pace with the reality of these families and to ensure the children born to them can enjoy the same protection and rights as other children. These changes could be applied retrospectively so existing families could apply for parents to be formally recognised,” Dr Ross said.

“Other major recommendations cover access to screened sperm for self-insemination and to reproductive technologies such as IVF. The current law is confusing and contradictory in places and needs clarification.

“In 2000 the McBain decision found the requirement in our current legislation that women must be married or in a de facto relationship to receive treatment was inconsistent with the federal Sex Discrimination Act. Accordingly, we have recommended the removal of this requirement.

“Research shows that it is the quality of parenting that most affects children’s lives, rather than the structure of the family.

“Instead of barring treatment on the grounds of marital status, we’ve focused on people who could potentially abuse or neglect children. We have recommended that there be a presumption against treatment for people with convictions for sexual offences and serious violent offences, as well as people who have had children taken from their care in the past.

“We released interim recommendations on all of these issues in 2005 and called for comment before making the final recommendations in today’s report. The thrust of our final recommendations remains broadly the same but we have changed our approach on the practical details of some processes. 

The report is available on the commission’s website www.lawreform.vic.gov.au, or by calling 8619 8619 or 1300 666 555.