UK: Huge rise in IVF for single and gay mothers since law requiring father figure was removed

Submitted by Broadsword on Sun, 2012-04-22 07:08

Article here. Excerpt:

'The number of single women and lesbian couples receiving fertility treatment has soared since the Government took the controversial decision to remove the legal requirement for any child conceived to have a father or father figure.

In 2007, before the change in the law, only 350 single women had IVF. But by 2010, the last year for available figures, that had leapt 448 per cent to 1,571. The number of lesbian couples given IVF more than doubled in the same period, from 178 to 417. But the number of heterosexual couples treated rose by only 18 per cent.

While the figures represent good news for women who have been able to become mothers because of the legal change, others are alarmed by the increase in ‘fatherless families’.'

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Comments

This result is not a surprise but one result of same-sex marriages may be a surprise: heterosexual women who marry other heterosexual women but have children by several men. They can thus collect child support from these men--and perhaps welfare as well. The paradigm has already been defined by single mothers. The government encourages this result by paying for it--and forcing men to pay for it (whether the men are the fathers or not). Same-sex marriage simply ups the ante, unless the government says women can't collect if "another woman" is around. Be interesting to see how the gov't handles that issue.

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Submitted by el cid on Sun, 2012-04-22 19:04

Would be nice, as long as they want to keep the "if you're married to a woman when she gets pregnant, you're the father" laws on the books, that they apply it across the board.

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Submitted by ItsDan on Sun, 2012-04-22 21:20