France’s lower house of parliament has approved a draft law to allow lesbians and single women to conceive children using donor sperm, a move that has set the stage for street protests next month.
At present, only heterosexual couples have the right to use medically assisted reproduction methods such as IVF and artificial insemination. Lesbians and single women who want to have children often travel abroad to fertility clinics for treatment, a situation they say is discriminatory.
The draft law, which represents Emmanuel Macron’s biggest social reform since he became president in 2017, has drawn the ire of conservatives as well as some in his own party who claim it would make children “fatherless”.
Macron, who acknowledged last week the political risk of the legislation, is mindful of the backlash six years ago against same-sex marriage, legalised under his Socialist predecessor François Hollande.
The bioethics bill must now be approved by the upper house, the senate, before it can become law.
