Victoria catches up on surrogacy and IVF law
15/12 Excerpted from a Stephen Lunn article in The Australian | VICTORIA will allow couples to have a baby with a surrogate mother and give lesbians and single women access to fertility treatment without forcing them to prove they are infertile.
In a significant philosophical shift, Victoria's Attorney-General Rob Hulls yesterday moved to adopt a series of "commonsense" recommendations of the state's Law Reform Commission on reproduction, adoption and surrogacy.
But Mr Hulls stopped short of endorsing laws concerning gay couples adopting children, saying there should be a national consensus before the legislation is changed.
The changes meant gay couples and infertile couples using a surrogate would not have to travel interstate to legally access fertility treatments as they are currently forced to do in many cases, he said.
Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy highlighted the surrogacy issue a year ago after travelling from Melbourne to Sydney with his wife Paula Benson and a surrogate mother to legally proceed with a surrogate birth.
"The reality is that many Victorian children are already born to same-sex couples and to single women and yet those children don't enjoy the same legal protections as others," Mr Hulls said.
... The new laws will change an anomaly in the surrogacy laws that allows only infertile women to act as surrogates if they want to use reproductive treatment.
Instead, the test of infertility will be applied to the commissioning parents, who will also be listed on the birth certificates. For lesbian couples, the female partner of a child's biological mother will be legally recognised as a parent. 
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22927378-23289,00.html
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