Storm as lesbian couple sue over unwarranted twin

Australia (Reuters News Report)

A LESBIAN couple in Australia are suing their doctor after they had twin girls from an in-vitro fertilisation procedure when they wanted only one child.

The two women are seeking more than $400,000 (NZ$470,000) in damages to help pay for the cost of raising the second child, including private school fees.

They say they made it clear to their doctor that they wanted only one baby. The twins are now three years old.

The civil case, which is the first of its kind in Australia, has prompted intense debate about the value of children and role of parents.

“The litigation involving twins already three years old undermines the importance of parenthood,” conservative government senator Guy Barnett said yesterday.

“We seem more intent on preserving and pandering to the wishes of adults than we are in protecting the rights of children.”

He wants same-sex couples and unmarried women to be banned from access to publicly funded IVF services, sparking a new moral debate ahead of national elections, due any time.

The case is being heard in Canberra. Letters published in the Canberra Times newspaper have overwhelmingly criticised the legal action after the birth of two healthy children.

“The child’s identity is subsumed to the whim of the mother who has bought the sperm and paid the IVF clinic,” The Australian columnist Angela Shanahan wrote in her newspaper. “Ultimately the result is the child as product, robbed of its unique identity.”

The court has ordered the suppression of the two women’s identities.

They used donor sperm from a Danish doctor for the IVF treatment in 2003.

The court has been told that they signed a consent form to allow two embryos to be implanted, but that they specifically told their specialist they wanted only one embryo implanted.

The court was told the births had created considerable stress within the couple’s relationship.

However, lawyers for the doctor said almost every couple who had a child went through similar strain.

Source: The Dominion Post. 21/09/07, B3.