The parenting news keeps coming! This edition of stories I haven’t covered separately is full of international news (and a few U.S. items), so read on and catch up with what’s happening around the world.
International News
- Asia News Network profiles the first known two-mom couple in South Korea to have a child together (although the article is framed as “the first openly gay Korean woman to give birth”). The nongestational mother, Kim Sae-yeon, will have no legal parental rights, cannot take parental leave, and cannot even serve as the child’s legal guardian in case of medical emergencies. While she would have rights if she adopted the child, there is “official reluctance” for unmarried people to adopt, notes the article—and although the women married in the U.S. several years ago, Korea does not recognize their marriage. The gestational mother, Kim Kyu-jin, is determined to make change, however, and said she believes in her country’s ability to do so.
- A two-mom couple in Hong Kong who started their family via reciprocal in vitro fertilization (RIVF), using one woman’s egg that the other carried (like my spouse and I), won a court case seeking legal recognition for the nongestational parent, reports France 24. (Side note: A Barron’s article on the couple, which says that RIVF “was introduced in the late 2000s” is dead wrong because my spouse and I did it in 2002, and I don’t think we were the first.)
- ELLE Hungary ran an issue featuring a two-dad family on the cover in defiance of the country’s strict anti-LGBTQ laws. “We celebrate not only the love of Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter and Dr. László Szegedi, but also the unity of the family, drawing attention to the fact that acceptance and understanding are indispensable in today’s world,” the magazine noted. (Google Translation, with edits for clarity.)
- The U.K.’s Department for Health & Social Care released data on policies for qualifying for government-funded IVF in England. It shows the wide variation in requirements to qualify for IVF depending on which part of the country one is in. The data follows last year’s announcement that female same-sex couples will no longer have to pay for expensive rounds of assisted insemination to prove infertility before accessing in vitro fertilization (IVF)—but clearly there is further to go before all can access this care equally.
U.S. News
- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Louisiana are seeking the release of a lesbian mother from El Salvador who has been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since June 2017, reports the Washington Blade. ACLU court filings say she was was detained because of “an Interpol Red Notice that was based on a Salvadoran warrant related to a charge of aggravated extortion for up to $30—a charge for which she had initially been acquitted.” The Interpol notice has since been withdrawn.
Family Profiles
- White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre shared in a Vogue interview that she and her partner, Suzanne Malveaux, are no longer together, but are continuing to jointly raise their daughter. “I’m a single mom who is co-parenting this amazing kid. Our number-one priority is her privacy and to make sure we create an environment that’s nurturing,” she said.
- CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who is also co-parenting with an ex (nightclub owner Benjamin Maisani), spoke with People about his family. Unlike Jean-Pierre and Malveaux, who adopted a child while together as a couple, Cooper and Maisani dated and broke up before becoming parents. Then, “They remained friends and decided to raise the boys together after the journalist welcomed them through a surrogate,” People notes. Cooper said that parenting brings him “moments of such bliss, humor and gentleness and sheer delight that it stuns me.”
- Sa’iyda Shabazz at Autostraddle writes of the “10 Things I’ve Learned in My 10 Years of Motherhood.” (I’m reminded of my own piece when my son turned 9, “Birthday Pride.” We parents sure get reflective on our kids’ birthdays.)