Tag Archives: fertilisation

Madrid Offers Assisted Reproduction To All Lesbian Couple After Court Ruling

Only days after a court handed down a decision in Spain against government restrictions on assisted reproduction treatments, Madrid regional premier Cristina Cifuentes said her government would immediately open the publicly funded services to all women regardless of their sexual preference or marital status.

Cristina Cifuentes

The announcement came after a Madrid court ordered regional government health officials and the Fundación Jiménez Díaz hospital to pay compensation to a lesbian woman who was cut off from the program following an order from the Health Ministry to deny services to unwed mothers and gay women.

After the couple filed numerous complaints and a lawsuit in May, the hospital said that it would re-evaluate all the cases and the woman is once again back under the assisted reproduction program.

The hospital’s decision to remove her from the program was based on a 2013 order by then-Health Minister Ana Mato, who excluded unwed mothers and lesbians from receiving artificial insemination and other fertility therapies paid for by the public health system.

Mato had issued the order based on a government decree to cut some €7 billion from the public health budget. Both Cifuentes and Mato are from the ruling Popular Party (PP).

But the court opined that the order went against legislation passed in 2006 on assisted reproduction, which clearly states that such treatment is available to women over the age of 18, “regardless of their civil status or sexual orientation.”

It ordered both the regional government and hospital to pay €4,875 in compensation to the women.

Cifuentes said that neither the government nor the hospital will appeal the decision and confirmed that the patient is back in the program.

All women “have the same rights” when it comes to reproduction assistance, she said.

Ellen DeGeneres Joins Elton John’s boycott of Dolce & Gabbana

Ellen DeGeneres has joined Elton John’s boycott of Dolce & Gabbana and says their remarks about same-sex parenting and “synthetic children” were “ignorant.”

Earlier this month, fashion icons Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana (aka Dolce & Gabbana) – who are gay themselves – made comments on their opposition to same-sex couples having children.

We oppose gay adoptions. The only family is the traditional one…. No chemical offsprings and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.”

They made their remarks to an Italian magazine, expressing their disapproval of “synthetic children” conceived via artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation, the only viable method of getting pregnant for both same-sex and heterosexual pairs.

Their comments enraged out singer-songwriter Elton John – who has sons Zachary and Elijah with his husband David Furnish – with Elton calling for a boycott of their luxury fashion label.

Since then several other celebrities have followed suit. Dolce and Gabbana later clarified their remarks, saying they did not mean to judge other people’s choices.

Talking with her wife Portia de Rossi to E! News at the 2015 GLAAD Media Awards in Beverly Hills, California on Saturday, DeGeneres said.

It’s not even worth commenting on because they’re, you know, ignorant,” 

The talk show host added she will never wear Dolce & Gabbana clothes “ever, ever again.”

ellen-glaad-02

De Rossi also added

The only thing you can say is that, you know, we’re all entitled to free speech. However, I just don’t understand who they are. I don’t understand why they would want to say that.”

Zoe Saldana, who attended the 2015 GLAAD Media Awards with husband Marco Perego, with whom she shares twin sons, disagrees with the couple’s stance. She told E! News it would be “the stupidest thing” to boycott Dolce & Gabbana, adding that she is “certainly not going to be refuting when they are adopting synthetic children, however they wanted to say it.”

DeGeneres and de Rossi, who celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in December, have no children and had last year debunked tabloid reports that claimed the two were trying to start a family.