On Wed, 17 Nov 1993, Ron Buckmire wrote:

> Please clarify the state of lgb parental rights in Sweden and the rest of
> Scandinavia, if you can.


LGB PARENTAL RIGHTS IN SWEDEN AND OTHER SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES

In the proposal for lbg marriage/partnership law in Sweden the
right to artificial insemination and adoption is not included.
In all other areas the future partnership law gives lgb
couples the same legal status as heterosexual married couples.
In A and B below I will make an attempt to describe the
Swedish insemination and adoption laws.


A.Swedish Insemination Laws

The law text says: For a woman to be inseminated, she has to
be either married or live under (heterosexual) marriage-like
conditions. Marriage-like conditions you might call
heterosexual domestic partners (?), we call it "sambo" (= live
together or under the same roof), which is very common here.
The legal rights for domestic partners, heterosexual and
homosexual, are also regulated by laws, which are less far-
reaching then the marriage laws.

All single women and lesbian domestic partners are excluded
from the right to insemination.

BUT, according to the law it's not criminal for a lesbian or
single heterosexual woman to have an insemination done. Also,
it's not criminal to help a woman with the actual
insemination, if it's not done for money (it's just that it is
not done by doctors in our hospitals).

The law also doesn't interfere with womens right to go to
other countries to have the insemination done. So if you have
a more liberal insemination law in the States, Scandinavian
women can go to US and be legally inseminated there.


B. Swedish Adoption Laws

In short the law text says:

1. You have to be 25 years of age or more to be allowed to
adopt.

2. Heterosexual married couples are permitted joint adoption
only (one of the partners in a marriage are not allowed an
adoption on their own).
And no one else but heterosexual married couples are permitted
joint adoption (= no glb joint adoption).

To conclude this rather bewildering law text you could say,
that:
1. COUPLES who want to adopt a child have to be MARRIED and
HETEROSEXUAL.
2. If you are SINGLE and want to adopt, you have to be at
least 25 years old.

This means, that our adoption laws are not prohibiting glb singels 
from adoption (I'm sorry for having written so earlier
in this discussion). For the moment a single gay man is having
his application for adoption examined by the authorities (I
will be back with more information about this case when it is
settled). But in reality adoption is not a realistic
alternative for lgb parents for the time being.

What I have said here about insemination and adoption laws is
seen from a Swedish perspective. I belive that the Danish and
Norwegian laws are similar on these issues. What I can say for
sure is, that the right for glb people to ADOPTION is not
included in their present partnership laws.

I hope that this message clarifies some of the obscurities
about lgb parental rights in Scandinavia. I don't know
anything about the situation in Holland, but maybe some one
else can inform us on the situation there?

Bjorn Skolander, University of Uppsala, Sweden
bjorn.skolander@nordiska.uu.se