Colombia’s Gay Adoptions Ruling

Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruling found that barring gay adoptions had deprived children of the right to be raised by families.

In a landmark gay adoptions ruling that eliminated a glaringly discriminatory policy, Colombia’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that gay individuals and couples may adopt children. In a 6-to-2 decision, the Constitutional Court found that barring gay people from adopting had unreasonably deprived children of the right to be raised by families.

The decision was the latest victory for gay activists in Colombia who have challenged discriminatory policies in a string of smartly litigated cases. The ruling will make it easier for gay individuals and couples to adopt children in state foster care. It also will allow people to be legally recognized as the parent of a same-sex partner’s biological child.

Anticipating criticism from political and religious leaders, the justices wrote that “doubts and fears about whether society is ready to accept this decision won’t be dissipated by being blind to an irrefutable reality.” The judges argued that there was no evidence that same-sex couples were unfit parents and no compelling reason to bar them from the universe of potential adoptive families.

Wednesday’s decision sparked criticism from Catholic Church leaders, who argued that the issue should have been decided by Congress or approved in a referendum. While some Colombian lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to expand the rights of gay people, those initiatives have stalled. The country’s top court has picked up the slack. In doing so, it has set a commendable example in a region where gay people continue to face widespread discrimination and scorn.

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A version of this editorial appears in print on November 10, 2015, in The International New York Times. Today’s Paper|Subscribe

 

New York Times, November 9, 2015

in Adoption / In the News / International / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Should A Same Sex Couple Get Fertility Benefits?

Are A Same Sex Couple Entitled to Fertility Benefits?

Same sex couple Sarah Soller-Mihlek, a Brooklyn guitar instructor, and Jill Soller-Mihlek say, “We want to start a family,” speaking into a camera focused on Sarah and “We’ve always dreamed of becoming parents,” adds her wife, Jill.

The couple made the video last year and posted it to Indiegogo, a crowdfunding website, in hopes of raising enough money to pay for fertility treatments. Jill Soller-Mihlek, now 33, was hoping to get pregnant via a sperm donor and intrauterine insemination, which can costs tens of thousands of dollars depending on how long it takes to conceive.

Although the couple’s insurance plan typically covers fertility treatment, their insurer, United Healthcare, would not cover the cost. The reason? Jill Soller-Mihlek didn’t meet its definition of infertility because she did not have sex with men.

The couple’s insurance policy defines infertility as an “inability to achieve pregnancy after 12 months of unprotected heterosexual intercourse.” But women who use sperm donors must pay for costly, physician-supervised therapeutic donor insemination for 12 months before they meet the definition of infertility. (Women 35 and older need to go through six failed attempts before meeting the clinical definition of infertility.)

After the Soller-Mihleks paid $13,507 out of pocket for nine unsuccessful cycles of insemination, they decided to chronicle their travails on Indiegogo and Change.org. While the United Healthcare policy tacitly acknowledges single women and same-sex couples, many policies do not. Some even exclude unwed women. Notably, major insurers like United Healthcare often do cover insemination treatments when the issue is male infertility.

The Soller-Mihleks believe their plan’s criteria for granting medical coverage of fertility treatment reveals a subtle form of discrimination against lesbians. (Needless to say, gay men face even greater obstacles in attempting to gain coverage, given that coverage wouldn’t extend to the woman who’d be carrying for them.)

The Soller-Mihleks say their concern is that a female same sex couple, by definition, is incapable of getting pregnant through heterosexual intercourse and requires medical intervention to conceive. They say the subtext of the United Healthcare policy is that a lesbian could get pregnant by having sex with a man, she just chooses not to.

Shannon Price Minter, head of the legal division at the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, said: “To me, the central injustice is that when a person has a known condition that precludes them from becoming pregnant, such as a woman who has had her ovaries removed, there is no requirement to go through a period of unprotected intercourse before being recognized as requiring fertility treatments. The same should be true for same-sex couples.”

Tyler Mason, a spokesman for UnitedHealthcare, said the company’s policy is based on the clinical disease of infertility, as defined by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.

“Our coverage criteria are based on clinical trial data, published literature and recommendations from a wide variety of medical specialty societies and state laws,” Mr. Mason wrote in a statement. “We constantly review and update coverage criteria.”

Aetna also uses the clinical definition of infertility to support its reimbursement policies for fertility treatments.

“It’s not a pregnancy benefit,” said Cynthia B. Michener, an Aetna spokeswoman. “It’s based on the clinical disease of infertility, supported by medical evidence and medical society guidelines, including those set out by the A.S.R.M., and it’s the same for everyone.”

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New York Times, November 2, 2015, by Stephanie Fairyington

in Egg Donation / IVF / Known Donor / Legal / Legislation / Science  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Do gay parents parents spend more time with kids?

Study finds gay parents spend significantly more time with kids

Gay parents spend significantly more time with their kids, according to a new study that challenges biases against same-sex parenting.

Researchers from the Population Research Center at the University of Texas found that women in lesbian relationships spend 40% more time engaged in child-focused activities than their straight counterparts, largely because both mothers typically offer as much time as mothers in straight relationships.

Fathers in straight relationships spend only about half as much time on child-focused activity. However, fathers in gay relationships spend roughly the same time as the mothers (around 100 minutes a day).

Lesbian couples invest 40% more time in their children

‘Our findings support the argument that parental investment in children is at least as great – and possibly greater – in same-sex couples as for different-sex couples,’ Kate Prickett, the lead author of the study, wrote on the Child and Family Blog.

‘On measures of child-focused time, children with two parents of the same sex families actually seem to receive more time investment. They received more focused time from their parents – 3.5 hours a day, compared with 2.5 hours by children with two different-sex parents.’

Child-focused activities are those that support their physical and cognitive development, such as reading to them, playing with them, helping with homework, bathing them and taking them to the doctor.

It does not include watching television or doing housework while a child is around. Child-focused activities, as well as certain family events such as eating meals together or reading books, are associated with better child outcomes. The study used 11 years of census data from 2003-2013, with a sample of more than 40,000 parents, 55 parents of whom were in gay relationships.

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gaystarnews.com – by Darren Wee, October 21, 2015
in Parenting / Science  by Anthony Brown 0 comments