Aggregated News
SHORTLY AFTER THE marriage equality referendum passed in 2015, Ranae von Meding became pregnant with her first child.
“We used my wife Audrey’s eggs and I carried our child,” von Meding says. “We were under the assumption that we would be treated the same as any other married couple. We were having our family and were in a happy little bubble.
“But then we found out that there was no legislation covering reciprocal IVF – where one female partner provides the eggs and the other carries the baby – for same-sex couples.
“To this day, Audrey is not recognised in Irish law as the mother to our children because she did not give birth, and that means our children do not have the legal protection of having two parents.”
She and her wife are among thousands of people both in same-sex or in opposite-sex couples who, under current legal provisions, do not have the same rights as other parents because of how their children were conceived.
On May 5, new laws commenced under the 2015 Children and Family Relationships Act...