Press release from The Iona
Institute
Iona Institute welcomes European
Court decision on gay adoption
March 16,
2012 – The Iona Institute welcomes
yesterday’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights that French laws
favouring opposite-sex couples in regard to both adoption and access to certain
Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) techniques are not in breach of the European
Convention on Human Rights.
In the case of GAS
et DUBOIS c. France (Requête no 25951/07),
the court held, by six votes to one, that there had been no violation of the
Convention by the limitation of artificial insemination to heterosexual couples
and by the French refusal to allow a woman to adopt her same-sex partner’s
child.
In respect of the use of
artificial insemination to conceive a child, the court said that the French law
restricting this to opposite-sex couples did not breach the Convention because
same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are different.
Commenting on the decision, Iona
Institute director, David Quinn said: “This is a victory for reason and common
sense. The principle of equal treatment says that similar situations should be
treated similarly and different situations differently.
“It is obvious that same-sex
couples and opposite-sex couples are different in that while the later can
provide a child with a mother and father, the former cannot. This is why French
law is as it is and our own Government should pay due heed to this when
considering similar questions”
He continued: “However, The
Iona Institute would also be of the view that donor eggs and sperm should not be
available to any couples as it deliberates severs the tie between a child and at
least one of its natural parents and this a violation of the rights of the
child”.
Notes to
Editors
The Iona Institute is a
pro-marriage, pro-religion think tank
