(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.) For same-sex couples wanting to have children, knowing where to begin can make a big difference. For couples starting their families through biological means, one new resource is the Family Building Options Web site, part of the Fertility Lifelines educational program created by pharmaceutical company EMD Serono. Despite […]
I’m still recovering from the holidays, so let’s be different and start with some celebrity news before diving into politics: Celebrity News Elton John and his partner David Furnish are now proud parents. “Elton John and David Furnish became first-time fathers on Christmas after welcoming a baby boy via a surrogate,” says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has gone this year to biologist Robert G. Edwards, who developed the procedure of in vitro fertilization. Since Helen and I created our family this way, I owe him a debt of thanks.
Personal Stories The Children’s Hospital Boston blog shares the story of Sylvia (not her real name), who was born Ryan, diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder at age six and transitioned to live as a girl at the start of fifth grade. The blog has also posted an essay by Sylvia’s father—both must-read pieces, as is
(Originally published as my Mombian newspaper column.) A long-running study of lesbian families created through donor insemination made headlines June 7 when it published new results showing that teens from these families tend to do better than their peers socially and academically. While these findings from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study are positive, they
(Originally written for my Mombian newspaper column.) Sperm donors are in. The upcoming feature film The Kids Are All Right stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian moms whose children go in search of their donor. The new memoir Three Wishes is by three straight women who each almost—but not quite—used the same vial
Two French gay dads are having difficulties bringing home their twins, born through a surrogate in India. France does not allow surrogacy, and the French consulate is refusing to transfer the twins’ names to the French birth registry, a necessary step before they can obtain passports. A gay Israeli couple had similar problems last month.
Many of you have participated in my recent giveaways of And Baby Makes More and the wonderful discussions they have generated. Co-editor Susan Goldberg has asked me to invite readers to the official book launch tomorrow in New York. Hope some of you can make it. (I won’t be able to, unfortunately, being far away
As promised, here are more quotes from And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents, and Our Unexpected Families. If you didn’t take part in last week’s giveaway of the book, never fear—I’ll be giving away another one this Wednesday, so stop back. (And if you haven’t read the comment thread from the last contest,
Politics and Law A must-read this week is Jacob M. Appel’s piece on the growing “sperm donors’ rights movement,” in which donors are trying to assert their claims to parenthood. New Mexico’s new parentage laws go into effect on January 1, Nancy Polikoff reminds us. The Really Quite Wonderful new law states: “a person who…consents
