Victory for Hong Kong Lesbian Couple in RIVF Case

In Hong Kong, a lesbian couple has won their court case for both mothers to be recognized as having parental status for their son.

The child was conceived via reciprocal in-vitro fertilization, or RIVF, a procedure in which one woman’s egg is fertilized via a sperm donor and then transferred to the second woman who carries the pregnancy to term. The RIVF process was completed in South Africa, where the couple were also married, as Hong Kong currently does not recognize same-gender marriage.

For this same reason, only one of the mothers was listed as the parent on their child’s birth certificate due to previously existing family laws. Yahoo! News reported that judge Queeny Au-Yeung ruled in favor of the couple, saying that the child was “discriminated as to his birth in the sense that, unlike other children, he does not have a co-parent, genetically linked to him.” This news comes as a step in the right direction towards same-gender couples reaching the same legal protections and statuses that heterosexual couples in Hong Kong already have. 

The two women in this case have chosen to remain anonymous, but Evelyn Tsao, one of the lawyers representing the women, says in a report by Yahoo! News: “For the first time, the court expressly states that children of same-sex couples are discriminated by the current legislation,”.

In the past, there have been rulings that allow same-gender couples in Hong Kong to acquire spousal dependent visas, joint tax assessments, employment visas, and public housing. But this ruling is one of the first related specifically to same-gender couples and their children. As LGBTQ+ activists in Hong Kong work towards securing further rights for same-gender couples and their children via the courts, this ruling has given hope that in the future same-gender couples will be able to legally marry, adopt children together, and have full shared legal rights over their children.