It’s become increasingly more common for members of the LGBTQ+ community to become parents.
How can a same sex couple have a baby?
Adoption and fostering are options, but where individuals or couples want to have a baby that’s biologically connected to them or to their partner, they may need to have fertility treatment. There are a variety of different ways to do this, depending on the sex, age, fertility issues and circumstances of each person.
Donor insemination, IVF with donor sperm, reciprocal IVF/shared motherhood, co-parenting and surrogacy, are some of the options available to LGBTQ+ couples or individuals.
What is donor insemination?
Donor insemination involves sperm from a donor, being placed into the woman who is going to carry the baby. This is referred to as IUI in the clinics, where the sperm can be screened to check for genetic disorders and infections and the woman is monitored, so that the sperm is inserted as near to ovulation as possible.
What is IVF with donor sperm?
Fertility drugs are given to the female partner to stimulate the ovaries to produce more eggs. The eggs are removed and sperm from the donor is put with the eggs in the lab to fertilise them. After a few days, one, or maybe two viable embryos, can be placed directly into the female partner’s uterus.
What is involved with reciprocal IVF/shared motherhood?
With reciprocal IVF (also known as shared motherhood) the eggs from one of the female partners (in a same sex couple) can be extracted and fertilised in the lab by donor sperm. Then one or two viable embryos can be inserted into the uterus of the other female partner. This allows both female partners to be more involved in the pregnancy.
What is co-parenting?
Co-parenting is when 2 people (who are not part of the same couple) team up to have a baby together.
What is IVF surrogacy?
IVF surrogacy involves finding a woman to act as a surrogate, who will carry the embryo and pregnancy to full term. In the UK, it is illegal to pay a surrogate, but they can claim expenses and it’s important to incorporate a clause around expenses when formulating a surrogacy agreement. There are agencies that can help with finding a surrogate. It’s also possible to choose to have an egg from an anonymous donor.
What are the legal implications around some of the LGBTQ+ options for becoming parents?
- With donor insemination done at a clinic, lesbian couples who are civil partners when the baby is conceived, will both be treated as their child’s legal parents, so will lesbian couples who are not civil partners. However, if the insemination is done at home, if there is no civil partnership at the time of conception, the non-birth mother will have no legal rights and would have to adopt the child to be a legal parent.
- With co-parenting, neither person has sole custody, so agreements have to be in place,...
