Lesbian mums fight for legal rights in Israel
A Israeli lesbian couple have filed a suit in a Tel Aviv district court for the right to both be named the biological parents of their newborn baby boy.
The case is exceptional as it is the first time that both partners in a homosexual relationship have had an active and biological role in the birth of the child.
After the woman who bore the child experienced fertility problems the couple decided that the other partner would conceive the child through artificial insemination.
The foetus was transferred to the woman’s partner, meaning that although the first woman is the child’s genetic and partly biological mother, only her partner will officially be declared a biological parent.
As a result of a previous High Court of Justice decision, the state of Israel accepts that both parents in a lesbian or homosexual relationship may be recognised as parents of the child.
The couple have filed the suit because they believe that the child would experience unnecessary distress if both parents were not officially biological parents.
Israel is opposed to allowing both partners in a lesbian couple to be registered as the biological mothers.
“Before approving the request for artificial insemination, the Health Ministry made it clear that the woman who donated the egg would not be considered the child’s mother and that if she wanted to be, she would have to adopt him,” State’s representative Attorney Orly Manzur told the court, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The case continues.
