France to legislate to allow assisted procreation for lesbian couples
A spokesperson for the French Government has said that it plans to legislate to allow lesbian couples access to assisted procreation.
This comes after an influential ethics panel yesterday recommended that medically assisted procreation be extended to include lesbian couples and single people.
The National Consultative Committee on Ethics made the recommendation on Tuesday, after President Emmanuel Macron promised to make the medically assisted reproduction techniques available to lesbians.
Government spokesperson Christophe Castaner said that Macron had been waiting for the backing of the ethics panel and now plans to legislate on the issue.
Castaner suggested that the process may be slow as to avoid strong opposition like that faced in 2013 when France legislated for same-sex marriage.
“It’s important to seek the broadest possible consensus and avoid overly dogmatic stances that would pitch people against one another,” Castaner told a weekly news conference.
“But our objective is to transform the view of the CCNE into legislation.”
If France goes ahead and changes its laws on assisted procreation, it would bring it in line with other European countries like Britain, Belgium and Spain.
It is currently only available to straight couples in France.
Some LGBT groups welcomed the recommendation, and SOS Homophibie said it was a good move, urging the President to legislate for the move swiftly.
Macron, who has spoken out on a number of LGBT issues, officially became the President of France last month.
Macron is a staunch supporter of LGBT rights and equality, having dedicated an entire section of his manifesto to addressing issues that the LGBT community faces.
The newly elected president, who is the youngest president to ever be elected in France, has pledged to end everyday homophobia as well as workplace anti-LGBT discrimination.
He has also promised to defend equal marriage, a legislation that Macron has deemed “an enrichment of what the family is in France that shows its importance to all of us”.
The President’s anti-LGBT opponent, Le Pen, had promised to abolish the law that created marriage equality in the country, burying the policy in a manifesto of 144 pledges.
