Abstract
Lesbians and gays are not allowed to marry according to the laws in Taiwan now, and only the married couple of husband and wife could use the Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART). It is also doubt that whether the court will grant the adoption of lesbian and gay parents. However, there were draft Basic Law for Human Rights Protection and draft Marriage Act for Lesbians and Gays once proposed, those discussions and proposals in the end will formulate the future family in Taiwan. This paper will review the parent-child relationship on the aspects of the possibilities provided from the ART and the existing lesbian families in Taiwan, though there are limited support and many obstacles from the law now. In Chapter 2, I introduced the difficulties and the challenges which lesbian families faced in Taiwan, the Taiwan lesbian family status and materials were from the LaMaNews, e-paper for the lesbian mothers, and the field work observation from joining the Lesbian Mothers’ Alliance, which combined into the “Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy” in July 2007. We can see there are urgent needs of the family rights protection for the LGBT families, and those needs are showed from the different ways of composing lesbian families, for example, using the ART to have children, lesbian and gay married to each other under private joint agreements, claiming for custody when divorce, factual nurturing and caring relationship etc. In Chapter 3, I discuss about the family rights and important conditions of forming a family, reviewing the related laws and regulations, the right of reproduction, and the right of reproductive autonomy. In Chapter 4, I argue whether the limitation on LGBT forming family can be justified under the Constitution of R.O.C.? I argued that the restriction on lesbians, gays and single persons using ART, and the rejection on the application of adoption only because the sex orientation of homosexuals are against the equal protection principle of the Constitution. In Chapter 5, I introduce the legislatures which protect same sex couple’s relationship, for example, the “Registered Partnership Act” in Demark, the “Civil Partnership Act” in the UK, the “civil union” and “domestic partnership” in some states in the United States. There are also cases using “second-parent adoption”, “joint adoption” and “Equitable Estoppels” to build the parent-child relationship for the lesbian families in the United States. In conclusion, no matter the law or the court shall not ban LGBT to form their family and their right of reproduction; the existing LGBT families need the protection of stable parent-child relationship, which will also be the best interest of the child. The law shall give the equal protection for LGBT families on the non-discriminatory basis.