international

It's illegal for gay people to adopt in France, and only heterosexual couples with fertility problems have access to medically assisted reproduction facilities there. So a phenomenon has begun with a number of lesbians are taking the high-speed train to Holland or Spain for insemination.

Author Theresa Miller, explores IVF and other assisted-reproduction techniques happening in Australia in her new book, "Making Babies - personal IVF stories". She offers 14 personal accounts from single mothers, and couples - both gay and straight. Each person interviewed for the book has been affected by the possibilities that are offered by in vitro fertilization (IVF).

A married lesbian couple was turned away from a Cape Town hospital and told, "we don't help people like you", when they visited the facility for fertility treatment.

Vincent Pallotti Hospital is a member of Life Healthcare - one of the largest private hospital groups in South Africa.

Liberal Member of Parliament Scott Brison, and his partner Maxime St. Pierre are about to be married in Nova Scotia. Brison's wedding comes just weeks after George Smitherman, Ontario's first openly gay cabinet minister, wed his partner Christopher Peloso.

The Australian government plans to introduce a bill into parliament that will ban overseas adoptions by same-sex couples. The move is described to give heterosexual couples in "typical family arrangements" priority over the limited number of children available for adoption in Asia.

Israel news outlets report that the country's Welfare Ministry has decided to assist lesbians and gay men in adoption.

Until recently, law in Israel only allowed heterosexual couples to adopt. The unfortunate adjective "normative" was used in language to describe permissible households. As a result, same-sex and single-parent families have suffered legal discrimination.

A judge ordered a lesbian mom in Spain to relinquish her daughters to their father because, he said, her homosexuality would harm them and “raised the risk” that the girls would also become lesbians.

Judge Fernando Ferrin Calamita said, “It is understood that (a parent’s) drug addiction, child abuse, prostitution, belonging to a satanic sect or heterosexual affair would negatively affect the children and serve as a reason for a change of custody. Well, it’s the same with homosexuality.”