PARIS: Thousands of people prepared to descend on Paris on Sunday to protest a government plan to let single women and lesbians become pregnant with fertility treatments, the first major social reform since France legalised gay marriage in 2013.
But that law did not allow lesbian couples or single women to have children via in-vitro fertilisation or other medically assisted means, long a taboo in France.Many women have instead been forced to go abroad for such treatments, and French courts had refused to recognise the second mother's maternity rights in the case of same-sex couples.
If approved, the law would bring French legislation in line with other European nations including Britain, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and Scandinavian countries, which authorise medically-assisted procreation for all women.Opponents say the law deprives children of a necessary paternal figure and threatens a traditional family structure, and would open the door to legalising surrogacy, including for gay men.
Her group and others say they have distributed some three million flyers against the law in recent weeks.But analysts say French society has become more acceptive of non-traditional families since 2012, noting for example a vote by National Assembly lawmakers last week to officially recognise the parenthood of a couple who had twins in the US via a surrogate.
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