The Lesbian Community Care Project of Howard Brown, 4025 N. Sheridan, held a presentation Wed., March 26, on the issues facing would-be LGBT parents. The event was part of its Lesbian Health Drop-In series. The presenters were Mindy Berkson, an infertility consultant and founder of Lotus Blossom Consulting, and Daliah Mehdi, Clinical Operations Manager at Howard Brown,who spoke about adoption.
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Mindy Berkson.
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According to Berkson, while giving birth is an option for most lesbians, they're faced with the kind of legal questions that heterosexuals don't encounter. For instance, insurance companies will not work with lesbians who are infertile because infertility can only be defined as such when there has been unprotected sex with an opposite-sex partner for a substantial period of time. Lesbians must consider questions about the relationship between the birth parent, the donor, and partners. There're also the possibilities of social stigma; political and cultural isolation; and the high cost of treatments like in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination, on which she gave detailed information. Berkson stressed the need for LGBT would-be parents to consider the variables of cost, which includes the number of children they hope for in the long term and the range of options from lesser-priced embryo donation programs to clinical insemination.
Dahlia Mehdi spoke about adoption for same-sex couples, drawing upon her own experience of currently waiting for an adoptive child. For Mehdi, the advantage of adoptions is that it places both parents on an equal footing since one person cannot be designated the birth mother. In Illinois, both parents ( in the case of a couple ) are designated equal parents right away but other states may require second parent adoptions. Mehdi stressed that LGBT people are adopting children in a more accepting environment. She also discussed the shift towards open adoptions, where the birth mother can maintain contact with the child, and the fact that domestic adoptions are cheaper alternatives to fertility treatments. Overall, the two speakers, while generally optimistic about the scenario of parenting for LGBT people, stressed the need for preparedness with regard to the different legal, financial, and emotional issues that lesbians in particular have to face, regardless of the options they pursue.