From: Hannele Lehtikuusi <haski@seta.fi>
Subject: Finland/ law/DETAILS
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 15:27:17 +0300 (EET DST)


NOTE! insemination/custody in Finnish Parnership Law

My summer holiday has allowed me to spend some time 
on reading QueerNet a bit more carefully.

I found some (remarkable for us) not so precise
information about the Partnership Law in Finland.
This Bill does not suggest anything on artificial
insemination and we are hoping that the issue is
not at all touched when this Act is passed. 
We also expect that custody rights are included.

There is a separate bill on artificial insemination and
it is still under work - and the practice at the 
moment is that if the doctor is convinced even
a single woman (read: also a lesbian) has right
to the treatment. The Bill on artificial insemination 
proposes that it would be forbidden to lesbians to have
any treatment (artificial insemination) but 
the time is on our side and it seems that it will
really take some time before they can pass the Act on
insemination - . The Finnish Bill on Same Sex Parnership
does not say a word on artificial insemination and
we hope it stays in this way. :)
In a meantime we keep working and lobbying.

The right to custody (like in Island) was left open
in the Bill on Same Sex Partnership. We found during our lobbying that
the politicians were very open to this issue even to the
extend of adoption of the partners child - but as 
known adoption is not in the Bill - instead the Bill
states clearly in the explanatory part that the
custody issues has to be discussed and solved fairly.
Fair - we think - is to have at least a Act similar to 
 Island.

haski



Hannele Lehtikuusi
Chairperson
SETA