Dempsey Deborah
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Int J Law Policy Family. 2004 Apr;18(1):76-102. doi: 10.1093/lawfam/18.1.76.
Planned parenthood within the international lesbian and gay communities has attracted considerable attention and controversy in the past decade. On 5 April 2002, Guest J of the Family Court of Australia acknowledged a lesbian couple as resident parents of 2-year-old 'Patrick'. This judgement was remarkable in that it signalled a break with the well-documented international legal non-recognition of lesbian non-biological parents. However, the judgement was actually a loss for the two women, who had initiated legal proceedings in a bid to have the biological father's contact visits with the child reduced. Contrary to their wishes, the biological father was awarded increased contact and a notion of 'father' was separated in law from 'parent.' In this article, via analysis of the judgement, several issues are examined. First, one dilemma Guest J was faced with was: are the best interests of a child in a lesbian-parented family served by recognizing a father as a means for a child to make sense of his biological origins, or, by allowing the child to form and maintain a 'father-like' social relationship? This dilemma made visible the somewhat arbitrary and subjective nature of the 'best interests' standard when it comes to deciding between characterizations of paternity that recognize the symbolism of biological connections versus those that recognize the blood tie as grounds for a regular paternal social relationship. In the absence of an obvious 'best interests' conclusion, the judge found himself in the difficult position of assessing both the original terms or intent of the parental agreement between the parties and the quality of the existing social relationship between biological father and child. It is argued that his assessment of both issues was, at times, coloured by an unsubstantiated assumption that the lesbian parents' concept of kinship was irrational. The 'Patrick' case also indicated the extent to which lesbians and gay men may have entirely different expectations and understandings of 'known donor' relationships. This finding is contextualized within broader historical and political developments within lesbian and gay cultures. The author's conclusion is that there is a pressing need for legislative, policy and community-based initiatives to guide and assist individuals who identify with these communities in the task of bringing children into the world.
在过去十年里，国际同性恋群体中的计划生育问题引起了相当大的关注和争议。2002年4月5日，澳大利亚家庭法院的J法官承认一对女同性恋伴侣是两岁孩子“帕特里克”的常住父母。这一判决意义重大，因为它标志着与国际上有充分记录的不承认女同性恋非亲生父母的法律做法决裂。然而，这一判决实际上对这两名女性来说是一次失败，她们发起法律诉讼，试图减少孩子生父的探视次数。与她们的意愿相反，生父被授予了更多的探视权，并且在法律上“父亲”的概念与“父母”的概念被区分开来。在本文中，通过对该判决的分析，探讨了几个问题。首先，J法官面临的一个困境是：对于女同性恋家庭中的孩子来说，承认父亲作为孩子理解其生物学出身的一种方式，或者允许孩子建立并维持一种“类似父亲”的社会关系，哪种方式符合孩子的最大利益？当涉及到在承认生物学联系的象征意义的亲子关系描述与将血缘关系视为常规父亲社会关系基础的描述之间做出决定时，这个困境凸显了“最大利益”标准在某种程度上的任意性和主观性。在没有明显的“最大利益”结论的情况下，法官发现自己处于一个艰难的境地，既要评估双方父母协议的原始条款或意图，又要评估生父与孩子之间现有社会关系的质量。有人认为，他对这两个问题的评估有时受到一种未经证实的假设的影响，即女同性恋父母的亲属关系概念是不合理的。“帕特里克”案还表明，同性恋者对“已知捐赠者”关系的期望和理解可能有很大不同。这一发现是在女同性恋和男同性恋文化更广泛的历史和政治发展背景下进行考量的。作者的结论是，迫切需要立法、政策和基于社区的倡议，以指导和协助认同这些群体的个人完成生育孩子的任务。
