Gay couple fights discriminatory law in Canada
Publish date: 22 February 2005
Issue Number: 1281
Diary: Legalbrief Today
Category: Human rights
A lesbian couple who have become parents to a child after one of them was artificially inseminated by a gay sperm donor is challenging, in the Ontario Court of Appeal, a law that discriminates against homosexuals.
The Globe and Mail reports that at the centre of the case is a federal law that prohibits gay males or men over 40 from being sperm donors. Jane Does donor was gay and aged 40. If heterosexual women could obtain artificial insemination with sperm donated by their spouses or sex partners without running into roadblocks, Doe said, why were lesbians being shut out? Her lawyer, Christopher Bredt, argued that the law treats gays and lesbians as second-class citizens, breaching their constitutional right to equality and security of the person. Full report in The Globe and Mail
