Pride Angel

In a recently published case a High Court Judge has declared a lesbian non birth mother as ‘not a parent’ due to errors at a fertility clinic. The case involved a lesbian couple who had been in a relationship for 13 years and had started a family together at a licensed fertility clinic, with the birth mother conceiving in 2009. The couple had waited for the changes in the law which allow a non birth mother to become a second parent by signing the necessary consent forms, to come into force before conception. However, now the couple have separated a dispute has arisen over whether the non birth mother should have contact with the children (twin boys).

The birth mother raised the question as to whether the non birth mother could be considered a legal parent due to apparent errors made in completing and submitting the consent forms and the procedures followed by the fertility clinic in question. The court was asked to determine on this preliminary issue before hearing the application for contact and has now ruled in favour of the birth mother.

Mr Justice Cobb very carefully considered the provisions under the HFEA 1990 and 2008 and the guidance given to fertility clinics. In the circumstances of the case it transpired that the consent to legal parentage for the non birth mother was not provided prior to conception and therefore she could not be considered a legal parent. In addition it was found that even if the necessary forms had been completed correctly the clinic had erred in not following the correct procedures, including failing to provide adequate counselling.

Although the court has ruled in favour of the birth mother in this instance the non birth mother has been given permission to continue her application for contact with the children.

It is a decision that will no doubt be of interest to both same sex parents and fertility clinics alike. It will serve as an important reminder to fertility clinics to ensure their procedures when treating couples meet the strict statutory requirements. It also highlights the conflict that can arise between couples when a relationship breaks down and the considerable heartache involved.

Article: 12th June 2013 www.nataliegambleassociates.co.uk

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Among the supporters of same-sex marriage outside the Palace of Westminster last week, PinkNews reported spotting a lesbian couple with their son who are desperate to marry.

Stella and her partner Lucy attended the vigil with their son Bailey. Stella told PinkNews.co.uk: “We have booked to get married next August. We just want our son Bailey to have same equivilent as all his friends, married parents. He knows the difference between marriage and civil partnership, that they are simply not equal. He just wants married mummies!”

Stella added: “We’re desperate for the law to pass in time for our wedding.” She praised the Out4Marriage campaign, initiated by PinkNews for its work on same-sex marriage equality.

Last night, the former Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, Lord Dear, had tabled a “fatal” amendment to deny the bill its second reading. In voting against the amendment, with 390 votes to 148, a majority of 242, the House of Lords allowed the passage of the bill to committee stage.

Article: 5th June 2013 www.pinknews.co.uk

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It was a Friday, the day the pregnancy test was positive. Day 29 of my cycle, fifteen days after insemination. A drab August day. The rain drizzling down the window panes seemed incongruent with my mood, but I was struggling to identify my mood at all. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t wished for a positive test. It was exactly what we’d been hoping for, of course. And it had happened much sooner than expected. A huge success.

But it was a strange feeling and I skulked around the house, not sure what to do with myself. I didn’t feel any different from the previous day, week, month. Yet somewhere deep inside me, a complex manufacturing process was taking place: cells were dividing and multiplying, and something microscopic yet undeniably human was starting to take shape. I was on holiday from work and normally I’d be getting on with something or other: odd jobs around the house, some lesson preparation ready for the new school term…but now I was four weeks pregnant and it didn’t seem right just to carry on as usual. But what do you do when you’re four weeks pregnant?

What you don’t do when you’re four weeks pregnant is tell anyone. I knew that rule well enough, so after an excited text to my partner, Sally, I put my phone aside and (perhaps it was the effect of the miserable weather) found myself a ‘helpful’ chart on the Internet showing the percentage risk of miscarriage at each week of pregnancy. After a brief period of amazement that even to make it thus far, our little embryo had defied the odds of 3:1, in that same rain-inspired spirit, I focused on the 10% chance that I would still miscarry – a 10% chance that wouldn’t go down to 5% until we were to hear a heartbeat. And when would that opportunity arise? When placed on my lower abdomen, Sally’s stethoscope was sadly lacking in the ability to detect anything other than a rather embarrassing set of noises emanating from my intestines.

The next couple of weeks were exciting, secretive and notably uneventful. Sally encouraged me to stock up on tasty snacks: eating regularly would prevent me from lacking in energy and feeling sick and I dutifully snacked away, attributing a vague trembling in the legs or a slight rumble of the stomach to dangerously low levels of blood sugar.

The August Bank Holiday Weekend arrived, and Sally and I were at Manchester Pride. It was the Sunday, about 5pm and wandering the busy stalls I suddenly felt as though I might be sick. I’m not generally a very sickly person and I’d forgotten what nausea felt like. Confident that food was the answer, Sally led me to the row of burger vans while I shuffled along behind her, clocking alleyways and dingy corners where I might vomit unnoticed. A couple of hours later, after slowly picking at a baked potato and beans, the blandest food I could find, the nausea faded. We found some friends, gave the usual imaginative excuses for my glass of lemonade, and settled down to relive our early childhood, watching Toyah Willcox in Sackville Gardens.

Over the next few days the nausea would turn up in time for afternoon tea and make itself at home for the evening. By the following weekend it had come to stay and save for, ironically, half an hour when I first woke up, ‘morning’ sickness became my main daily activity, the day punctuated by attempts to force down various food items and galloped trips to the toilet for retching – no actual vomiting at this stage. I eventually settled on a fairly consistent diet of breadsticks, boiled eggs, small pieces of very mild cheese and watermelon.

September arrived and it was time to return to work for the new school term. The mere notion of teaching five classes of teenagers each day, followed by time spent planning lessons and marking their books seemed laughable in my current condition. Nevertheless, left with little choice, I armed myself with a roll of pedal bin liners and motion sickness wrist bands and, after guiltily confessing all to the school management, got on with it – albeit slipping out into the corridor now and again with a bin bag for a tactical retch, and surreptitiously shoving small cubes of cheese into my mouth as Year 11 exited, and Year 10 came in.

The worst time was always the evenings, and while this meant I generally managed fairly well where work was concerned, poor Sally got me at my worst each day. Arriving home from work at 7.30pm, she would usually find me lying as still as I could on the bed, perhaps emitting a faint moaning sound. Little would change until I’d wake up in the middle of the night, feeling almost normal and wondering whether beginning a nocturnal life was the answer.

Sally put aside her fears that she’d be stuck with this new miserable, retching girlfriend for life and focused her time on reading voraciously about pregnancy and obsessively sending off coupons for free stuff. It seems there are no trial-sachet lengths that companies will not go to in order to get the custom of mothers-to-be, and we were soon stockpiling sample packs of stretchmark lotions, nappy creams, fabric conditioner and even packs of nappies and the occasional towel.

Meanwhile both my nausea and my fury that no one had given me any kind of realistic warning about what the nausea would be like were coming to a peak. I was ready to do serious damage to the next person who suggested my problems might be solved by the consumption of ginger. I’d moved on to hot school dinners at lunchtime which were going down quite well, and at least providing me with some vegetable intake, but I was now vomiting every evening, and by nine weeks I stopped bothering to eat at all after 3pm; it was just a waste of good food.

At school rumours of my pregnancy were already rife: much to my bafflement, it seems wearing motion sickness bands during the working day is an obvious sign of pregnancy to today’s Year 11 girls. I would hear whispers as I arrived at my classroom door, “you can see it, look!” and I’d hold my tummy in as well as I could, and make sure my top was covering the extender clip on my trousers. Despite having lost five kilogrammes and having had to remove my rings from my fingers before they slipped off, there was now a slight bump becoming noticeable, although only really obvious when I was naked.

At twelve weeks the midwife came to visit. After a rather amusing moment where she asked for Sally’s genetic history, and we had to remind her of the use of donor sperm, she asked me to lie flat on my back while she prodded my tummy with some midwifery device. And there it was, a heartbeat, inside me, that wasn’t my heartbeat. Suddenly I felt an amazing sense of relief – until now, no one else had offered any confirmation that I was actually pregnant. I’d done the test myself and then felt sick. People just believe you, but what if it had all been in my head? Anyway, it wasn’t – there was something inside me that wasn’t me. Something alive, and in a week’s time at the scan, we’d get the further confirmation – that this creature was a baby.

Article: 5th May 2013 by Lindsey, West Yorkshire

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A sperm donor and lesbian couple from Ontario Canada who have been fighting over custody of their two year old son, have suddenly settled their case, after months of litigation and shortly before a scheduled trial.

The man had signed an agreement that he would have nothing to do with his genetic offspring. But he had second thoughts after the baby was born, felt the biological mother had reneged on her part of their deal and asked the courts to recognize him as the father, providing liberal access. The suit, whose parties cannot be named under the terms of a publication ban, has now been effectively withdrawn.

‘It is always better for litigants to come to a resolution on their own’

“This is certainly the right outcome for this loving, bonded and stable family,” Michelle Flowerday, the couple’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement. “It is always better for litigants to come to a resolution on their own, as opposed to having one imposed upon them by the court.” The fact that the courts will not rule on the dispute, however, leaves a gap in the law in Ontario and other provinces, she said. There is a growing national movement to make clear that donating sperm does not equate to being a parent, but only B.C., Alberta and Quebec have enshrined the idea in their legislation, said Ms. Flowerday.

The donor and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.

Growing numbers of children are being born in Canada as a result of in-vitro fertilization and other forms of “assisted” reproduction. When donations are obtained anonymously from sperm banks, and in the few provinces with laws that directly address the issue, parenthood is generally uncontested.

Where couples and single people make arrangements with sperm donors they know, however, the rights of the various parties remain largely unresolved. The northern Ontario dispute boasted the most clear-cut set of facts of any to reach the courts, making it an ideal legal testing ground. A trial was scheduled for this summer.

The donor was a high-school acquaintance of the biological mother, and initially agreed to bear a child for him, as well, if he agreed to provide his sperm. The actual agreement he signed, though, did not mention that part of their arrangement.

He went to court after the boy was born, saying that he had felt pressured by the mother and that she now appeared unwilling to have a baby for him. But then, at a meeting last week, the parties agreed to a declaration that the two women are the child’s parents and the donor is not his father, according to an order issued by Justice Gregory Ellies of the Ontario Superior Court.

‘I don’t think anybody wants to be a test case’

The document also includes a restraining order preventing him from having contact with the child or the two women. In exchange, though, he and his parents have the right to one meeting of at least an hour in a public place, with an agreed-upon third party observing. The donor and his parents “may not initiate physical contact” with the boy, and cannot take photographs or video. As well, the man and his parents are barred from identifying themselves as the child’s father or grandparents, said the order.

“I don’t think anybody wants to be a test case,” noted Fiona Kelly, a University of British Columbia law professor who studies the field, about the settlement.

The lack of a ruling, however, means continued ambiguity in the majority of provinces that lack laws like one recently enacted in B.C., she said. That legislation says being a sperm donor does not in itself make someone a father.

Article: 13th April 2013 www.news.nationalpost.com

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For some couples the decision is easy, and the choice of a donor obvious, for others knowing your own standpoint on this or agreeing with your partner is harder. For some couples basic characteristics such as height, hair and eye colour are essential. For some couples meeting the donor in person is a very important step in being able to decide for the right donor or even co-parent. For some couples the wish for involvement from the donor is critical and the level of wanted involvement also varies greatly among couples.

Common for all British lesbian couples though, is that the donor cannot be completely anonymous, as law prohibits this. The law from April 2005 was enforced, because it was believed that every child has a right to know its genetic background. How this influences couples' choices of a donor, is what greatly interests me.

Looking for couples to interview
My name is Siff Groth and my own thoughts on starting a family with my partner, has made me passionate about working with this subject in an academic way. I am a Danish student of Social Anthropology, and am currently in Brighton to do a five month long fieldwork, ending by the end of June.

I meet with lesbian parents and parents-to-be and listen to their stories and hereby learn about how couples start their family and decide on the right donor for them.

If you and your partner are in the process of choosing a donor or have already had your child, if you are located in the Sussex area, UK, and would like to share with me your experiences, it will be very much appreciated and I will look forward to listen your story! Feel free to contact me at frk.groth@gmail.com, also for any questions regarding the study.

Article: 13th April 2013 by Sith, Student of Anthropology

Find your sperm donor at www.prideangel.com

Ask Janis Hetherington what kind of mother she is and she replies, without hesitation, ‘unconventional’. 'I’m not a “mummy” person at all,’ she says. ‘But I’m a brilliant father. I had to be both, so parenthood was quite schizophrenic in lots of ways.’ In 1972, Janis, now 66, made history as the first British lesbian to have a child by artificial insemination using sperm from a donor.

Her son Nick, 41, now a happily married screenwriter living in New York, has the unique distinction of being the first child in this country to grow up with same-sex parents — a revolutionary concept at the time of his birth in 1972. Born into a family which consisted of his mother Janis and her partner Judy, who had a young daughter of her own, Nick was nine months old when Judy died of a heart attack, aged 30. He was two when Janis met her current partner, Barbara, who became his second ‘Mum’.

Today, same-sex parenting is more or less accepted in Western society, but for Janis and Nick it was a sometimes difficult experience, and it is only now they feel comfortable enough to acknowledge the fault lines in their relationship. Janis says: ‘It felt wonderful to be a pioneer, but I was incredibly lonely because I was the first. People who opposed what I was doing waited for me to fail, so perhaps I was unable to enjoy motherhood in the way I might have liked. ‘Knowing what I know now, though, I would still have gone ahead with it.’

Dressed in a waistcoat and suit, her grey hair scraped back into a bun, Janis could easily pass for a country gent as she stokes the log fire in her 17th-century Oxfordshire house. In the kitchen, however, her feminine side flourishes. A brilliant cook, she shares recipes and doles out home-made chutney.

The overall impression is of intellectualism underpinned by a vulnerability borne from a lifetime of being judged — not only by those morally opposed to her choices, but by her own son. Today, Janis and Nick agree they share ‘an amazing bond’ — but it wasn’t always so. As an angry young man, he found her wanting.

When Nick first moved to America 20 years ago, he didn’t speak to Janis for two years because their relationship was so strained. It took ten years for them to mend fences. By comparison with his childhood, his adult life looks conventional. He married Soo Kim, 42, a TV producer, in the Caribbean two years ago, and they hope to have a child soon.

Read more....

Article: 5th March 2013 www.dailymail.co.uk

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Janis Hetherington sits with her back erect on a pink chaise, in a pink room. We are in the understated grandeur of her 17th-century longhouse in a sleepy town in Oxfordshire, which she shares with her long-term partner, Barbara. Her grey hair is wound in a tight plait and pinned to her head. With wide trousers, waistcoat, jaunty cravat and a hanky in her pocket she resembles a country gent about to go hunting.

More than 40 years ago, Janis was the first lesbian in the UK to undergo artificial insemination. For anyone else that might have been a daunting decision, fraught with fear of the potential repercussions and prejudice, but for Janis it was only one of several controversial decisions that have characterised her life.

Age hasn't calmed her wild ways; at 66, she's still a massive flirt. "If I were 20 years younger!" she cackles, patting my knee, with a Cheshire cat grin and saucer-wide eyes. To say Janis has a high sex drive is an understatement. In her youth, she was, "totally addicted to, if you like, sex. It was bliss." She says it with a Miranda-style primness, all Patricia Hodge plummy tones – but there's a Carry On whimsy to her saucy life story.

As a teenager, Janis was determined to explore her sexuality and she took a 25-year-old lover when she was just 15. "A lot of people would say she should be arrested," she says. "That's absolute rubbish. I mean, I was the one seducing her!"

At 16, she travelled to France, where she was recruited into a brothel and at just 18 moved back to London to start up a sex business of her own. During that time she was raped and became pregnant, but at seven months, she miscarried. By the age of 25, Janis felt she had "done everything" and the lifestyle had begun to wear her down; "it wasn't all a bed of roses" she says despondently. She began to long for stability, a partner – and a baby.

"She was scared and exhausted and she also felt trapped. She had this great, glamorous life but what she really needed was someone to love her for who she really was," says Nick, Janis's son.

Now 41, Nick is married, living in New York and is working on the screenplay of his mother's life. He's had uncomfortable conversations that a son might not normally have with his mother, but it's helped him to understand her. "I've become almost her biographer," he says.

In 1971, aged 25, Janis met Judy. Ten days later, they left London for Bicester, Oxfordshire, bringing Judy's five-year-old daughter, Lisa, with them. They settled down, ran a dress shop together and got involved in the local women's football team. They quickly decided to have a child.

The fertility doctor actually donated his own sperm for the insemination. "Whether it was fresh sperm or frozen I don't know ... but he disappeared with his assistant nurse who was quite pretty and he came back looking quite happy," says Janis with a giggle.

It was the 1970s and artificial insemination was virtually unheard of, but the community in Bicester was very supportive. "They were all looking forward to it. I used to go hunting with the guys and they would say, 'we'll set her with our spray' – they had this spray they used on the sows to set the sperm, but I said, 'you're not getting into my knickers thank you very much!'"

Nine months after Nick was born, Judy died of a heart attack, age 30. "I knew she was dying, because I could hear it – the death rattle, eyes sightless... we got her up on the bed and [a medic friend] started to resuscitate her... you could see her body filling with air... I just knew she was dead. I looked out the window and I felt her go past me and somehow I knew she was gone."

The attendant doctor refused to acknowledge Janis as the next of kin. "I said for fuck's sake, she's dead. She's my lover. That's my child we've had together. If you don't believe me get the fucking police."

A battle for custody of Lisa quickly ensued and lasted two years in which Janis had no time to grieve. "I was angry, absolutely angry. It was almost as if I had evolved as a butterfly and I was going back to being a caterpillar. I had nothing. I had no rights."

"I think in some ways Mummy never got over Judy's death and that was incredibly hard," says Nick. When Nick was two, Janis and Barbara became an item. "We were trying to find out who we were to each other and it was very difficult for Lisa, who had lost her mum... [Janis] is not the easiest mum to have, not because of her sexuality, but because of who she was ... but you strip away the layers and realise she is extremely vulnerable."

Janis and Barbara were always open with the children about how Nick had been conceived, although he wasn't fully aware of the life Janis had before he was born. Growing up, Lisa was lavished with presents and both children had a liberal upbringing.

Aside from a brief experimental fling at 16 with a man, Nick is straight and thoroughly conventional – although he says this was partly due to the pressure he felt to prove to the world he was normal. He is still close to both Barbara and Janis (whom he calls "Mummy and Mummy"), but Lisa moved to Australia to start a family and has just become a grandmother for the first time. Lisa doesn't speak to Janis or Barbara – although she and Nick often talk.

Janis is surprised there are still challenges to be met regarding sexuality today. "I can't understand why people are making such an issue about gay marriage and gay families now. Did they just think it would go away? I do feel totally in a time warp. It's like I am Doctor Who in that bloody telephone box and everything I represented 40 years ago – people have suddenly started to realise it. Why has it taken all this time?"

The issue of lesbian insemination has come to the forefront of the news agenda recently, as same-sex couples will be included in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines on IVF treatment for the first time. The guidelines state those hoping to start a family should be treated according to the same criteria as heterosexual couples.

"'Alternative families' is almost a derogatory name," says Janis, "but now mainstream media are talking about them, perhaps Britain will wake up to the fact there are gay families out there. Besides, the story is not about me any more, the story is about my son, ask him."

I do: "It doesn't matter what sort of environment you grow up in, straight, bi or transgender, but that family has to be strong and if it's not strong it will be shitty and, certainly growing up, ours was not strong." Despite those early hurdles, Nick says they are now close. "I now have that unity [with my mother] and my sister has found that unity with her own family."

Janis says although the process of telling Nick her life story was "excruciating" she trusted him not to reject her, and he, in turn, felt it explained a lot. "I probably know more about her than anyone else on the planet. There were always a lot of holes that I couldn't figure out. I felt more filled out, more complete when I found out, because it's part of you, isn't it? And all those things you were mad about you sort of go, 'Ah, OK,' and she stops being your mum, in a way, and she is just a human."

'Love Lies Bleeding: Memoirs of a Sexual Revolutionary' by Janis Hetherington is available from Amazon

Article: 11th March 2013 www.independent.co.uk

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So, having neither of us ever written a blog, we are writing one about the difficulties we, as a lesbian couple, are having trying to find a sperm donor in a rural, stuck in the dark ages, area, in the middle of nowhere .

Things aren’t quite as straight forward for us two; I suffer from one of the rarer forms of Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome or MRKH for short. Most sufferers of the condition have all the female workings minus a uterus, or minus the vagina. My version was a bit more complicated.

From being young, I was small for my age, had routine checks for my height and weight. Then at 16, when I hadn’t started my periods, it was always put down to my height and weight, but the Doctors sent me for a scan, then to hospital for further testing after constant nagging. I had a camera put in just under my belly button and another one just on my pubic area. It was found that not only was I missing my uterus and fallopian tubes but I also had no vagina.

As you can imagine, to be told this at any age would be upsetting enough, but to find out that at 16, you were only one in 5,000,000 to have the rarest form of MRKH would be one hell of a blow, especially when all I have ever wanted was to be a mum! From early 1998, aged just 17, I made 3 trips to the Queen Charlotte Hospital in London, the first trip down was to meet the consultant to find out what happened next.

The second trip was to create a vaginal opening; this involved the use of dilators being inserted as far as possible and holding in place, increasing the length of time each time I had to do it. The only way to describe it would be to try squeezing a 6 inch vibrator into a hole the size of a pea!!! As you can imagine a very uncomfortable and painful experience. I was, however, lucky in the fact that I didn’t need to undergo the surgical route of creating a vagina as my skin had enough elasticity in it. To add to the emotional trauma of all this going on, I was trying to cope with my parents separating around Christmas/New Year 1997 into 1998….. Definitely one to remember…. For all the wrong reasons!

So, MRKH…. Some facts for those who are interested

MRKH is a congenital disorder that affects the female reproductive tract. Congenital means that it is there at birth. About 1 in every 5,000-10,000 female babies has this condition. MRKH is a syndrome (group of symptoms). We do not know the cause of this syndrome but we do know that when a baby grows in the mother’s uterus (womb), systems develop. One of the systems is called the reproductive system, which includes the uterus, vagina, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. The reproductive system is formed during the first few months of “foetal” life (while a baby is still in her mother’s womb).

With MRKH, the reproductive system starts to develop but doesn’t completely finish. Girls with MRKH have normal ovaries and fallopian tubes. Most often the uterus is absent or tiny. The vagina is typically shorter and narrower than usual or it may be absent. Sometimes, there may be one kidney instead of two. About 3% of girls will have a minor hearing loss and some may have spinal problems such as scoliosis (curvature of the spine).

When is a girl likely to find out she has MRKH? The most common age for MRKH to be diagnosed is when a young woman is between 15 and 18 years old. That’s when a young woman is likely to see her health care provider because she hasn’t started her period. Some girls may find out at an earlier age or when they are older.
You can create a vagina without surgery using dilators
You can have a surgical procedure
You can do nothing

Creating a vagina with dilators Most of the time girls with MRKH choose to make a vagina by using vaginal dilators. This treatment is very effective and “non-invasive” (does not have the risks of an operation). There are different kinds of dilators available and they come in different sizes. The most commonly used dilators look like a thick plastic tube similar to a slender tampon. Starting with the smallest dilator you will learn how to hold the dilator and apply pressure to stretch your vagina. In the beginning, most of the dilator will be on the “outside” and used as a “handle” (as it can only go in so far). You will use the dilator for about 15-20 minutes, twice a day. Over time, you will begin to notice that the dilator is able to go into your vagina a bit further. This means you have made progress! As your vagina stretches, your doctor will know when to give you the next size. The next size will be slightly wider.

The average amount of time it takes to create a vagina (if the dilator is used at least 15-20 minutes, twice a day) is about 3-14 months. It can take less time for some young women or more time for others. If the dilators are not used every day, it can take a year or more.

So, that’s the scientific bit out of the way.

Where does this leave me now? Well, I am 32 years old, in a civil partnership with my beautiful, understanding wife and, we want to start a family. Naturally, due to my condition, I will be unable to carry a baby, but we are looking for a donor for my wife to (fingers crossed) become pregnant through.

Trying to find a donor around where we live isn’t exactly easy. The nearest cities (where the majority of donors appear to be) are over 100 miles away. We can travel (the wife drives!) so that isn’t an issue, it’s a case of finding a donor who is willing to donate via AI (Artificial Insemination), someone who is willing to take the time for us to get to know them. We aren’t looking for an “uncle” or co-parent, something that a lot of donors are looking for.

Hopefully by the time we write the next blog, we will have been successful in finding a donor and have something positive to talk about!

Article: 20th February 2013 by Amy and Sarah

Are you a lesbian couple wishing to start a family? search your perfect sperm donor or co-parent at www.prideangel.com

Read more about MRKH and choosing to have children through surrogacy at www.mrkh.org.uk

The Welsh secretary has said gay couples "clearly" cannot provide a "warm and safe environment" in which to raise children. On ITV Wales' Face to Face programme, David Jones said this was why he had voted against the government's legislation for same-sex marriage.

The Conservative MP said he was not homophobic and had "people in my life who are important to me who are gay". But Labour said the comments showed "the nasty party is alive and well".

MPs were given a free vote on same-sex marriage legislation in the Commons last week, meaning that they were allowed to vote according to their consciences and did not face sanctions for taking an opposing view to their party leaders.

Prime Minister David Cameron is a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, but Mr Jones was one of two cabinet ministers to vote against it.

'Overwhelming opposition'

The Welsh secretary told ITV: "I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that two same-sex partners can't do.

"Which is not to say that I'm in any sense opposed to stable and committed same-sex partnerships."

He said he believed his constituents were "overwhelmingly" opposed to the government's plan to allow same-sex couples to marry or convert their civil partnerships to marriages. In a statement after the interview, Mr Jones added: "I made the point of stressing that I was fully supportive of committed same-sex relationships. I also strongly approve of civil partnerships.

"I did not say in the interview that same-sex partners should not adopt children and that is not my view. "I simply sought to point out that, since same-sex partners could not biologically procreate children, the institution of marriage was one that, in my opinion, should be reserved to opposite sex partners."

'Ill-informed'

But shadow Welsh secretary Owen Smith strongly criticised the secretary of state's original remarks. "That such views exist in the heart of the Tory cabinet provides yet more evidence of how out of touch the Tories are with modern Britain, and how David Cameron's claim to have changed his party is, like so many of his promises, nothing more than empty words," the Labour MP said.

"David Jones's comments are profoundly offensive and he should apologise immediately." The director of campaign group Stonewall Cymru, Andrew White, said: "We're saddened that the secretary of state for Wales should make such an offensive and inaccurate remark.

"There are many different types of family in Wales today, including many same-sex couples raising children. It's deeply undermining to families and children when they hear this sort of ill-informed comment.

"Fortunately, recent YouGov polling for Stonewall Cymru shows that the secretary of state's views are out of touch with the majority of people, both in Wales and throughout Great Britain."

Article: 15th February 2013 www.bbc.co.uk

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