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Despite years of advocacy, the law has never been updated to protect single parents who have used assisted reproductive technology – exposing them to claims from sperm donors who never intended to parent. By Hannah Bambra.
Single mothers unprotected by family law
Single mothers by choice are the largest users of donated sperm and assisted reproductive technology in Australia, yet they have the least legal rights under the country’s Family Law Act.
Couples conceiving children via donor eggs or sperm are fully recognised by the 1975 act, but its wording presumes two parents. This leaves single parents – predominantly women – legally exposed to their donor claiming co-parenting rights, even if they had never intended to parent.
While most donors are altruistically motivated, and are offered counselling on the boundaries of their role, clear laws would help all involved to receive clarity.
“Reform is long overdue,” says Heather Corkhill, equality director of Rainbow Families Australia and a human rights lawyer. “The Family Law Council recommended reform back in 2013. More than a decade later, the law still hasn’t been updated to reflect solo parent families, leaving them in a grey zone.”
The key piece in need of reform is Section 60H of the Family Law Act, which states that if a child is born to a woman using donor sperm, eggs or embryos, that child is regarded as the child of “the woman and the other intended parent”. The law therefore protects a birth mother plus her married or de facto partner – which has only included a same-sex partner since 2008. The wording does not cover single women who use donor conception.
Alex Greenwich, independent member for Sydney, provided The Saturday Paper with a copy of a letter he sent to Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on August 1, asking for legal protection for single mothers using assisted reproductive technology to be a priority.
In his letter, Greenwich said, “single women and their children are vulnerable to challenges from sperm donors … The law fails to recognise their family unit and gives them lesser legal certainty than families with partnered mothers.”
A government spokesperson told The Saturday Paper the Albanese government is committed to ensuring that Australia’s family law system works for all families. However, Rowland has said the government is not currently considering legislative reform in this area. In response to the letter, she said “the ‘best interests of the child’ is the paramount consideration” and cites “relationship status” as one of the “facts and circumstances” relevant to each case.
Advocates for changing the law suggest this infers that unintended co-parenting with a donor could be considered more beneficial than a dedicated and consistent single parent.
“It suggests there is something missing, rather than a complete family in itself,” says Rebecca Kerner, who is a psychotherapist and chair of the Australian and New Zealand Infertility Counsellors Association (ANZICA).
“This comes from a very old-fashioned heteronormative lens that the ‘best interests of the child’ is to have a mother and a father. It’s outdated.”
Rowland also refers to the Masson v Parsons & Ors case in 2019 as a “useful discussion” in relation to legal parentage and donation.
That ruling meant two mothers could no longer make major decisions about their daughter’s life without consulting the donor, including a planned move to New Zealand that he successfully blocked.
The case is controversial because it undermines the principle that donors have no parental rights. The two women were not in a de facto relationship at the time of conception (nor was same-sex marriage legal). The High Court therefore focused on the points that the donor believed himself to be the father, his name was on the birth certificate, and he “had an ongoing role in [the child’s] financial support, health, education and general welfare”.
This ruling was interpreted by some as a precedent whereby mothers might be committed to unwanted co-parenting arrangements with men who have agreed to play only a donor role.
While most never make it to court, a few public cases have related to single parents.
In the case of Groth v Banks in 2013, the donor was never the mother’s partner and did not plan to be a parent, but the court still ruled that his biological link was enough to grant parenthood in the “absence of another parent”. A waiver signed with the clinic based on Victorian state law was superseded by the federal act.
In the most tragic example, from 2002, a woman whose sperm donor had drawn her into years of court proceedings died with her toddler in a murder-suicide.
Kerner says she has encountered women in clinics with high levels of distress and suicidal ideation when they discover these risks or become exposed to them. De-identified screenshots from single parent forums and chat groups shared with The Saturday Paper show the fear and angst these legal cases can create.
When one woman posts to say she’s finally found a friend willing to be a donor, peers jump in with comments: “be careful”, “recently had a friend go through issues with the legality of the [donor] contract”.
Another says she is lobbying the federal government to give solo parents protection in the Family Law Act. “I wouldn’t be doing so if it wasn’t necessary,” she says.
Amy*, a single mother by choice, tells The Saturday Paper, “It’s blatant discrimination.” The law needs to be updated, she says, “to acknowledge the lived reality of single-parent families”.
Former federal health minister Greg Hunt also backs an update to the act. He co-wrote the “Framework for an Australian 10-Year Fertility Roadmap” with Dr Rachel Swift last year.
Their report stated that “at present, unpartnered women who conceive using artificial conception procedures are omitted … leaving single mothers by choice and their children without the same legal protection and certainty provided to heterosexual and homosexual couples.”
The report, which includes recommendations that would affect the wording of the Family Law Act, was sent to state, territory and Commonwealth ministers and departments.
“This change would follow both US definitions and the recommendations of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand,” Hunt tells The Saturday Paper.
Amy says the ambiguity around the Australian law is adding to the “tsunami of misinformation” that queer and solo parents encounter when trying to access donated sperm to start families.
She was shocked when she first realised single parents are not protected from disputes. At the clinic, she had been told there was no risk when she first conceived with the help of a sperm donor. “The trauma is not abstract,” she says. “It’s lived daily.
“This isn’t about the best interests of children – single mums were completely overlooked in the law and now the government doesn’t understand the implications or insinuation that our families are ‘less than’,” she says.
Kerner says many single women are presenting to clinics with high psychological distress; fears they will have their babies taken away or freedom of movement restricted.
Moreover, despite being the largest user group of donor gametes and assisted reproductive technology, single parents by choice have experienced multiple forms of discrimination in the fertility system.
The federal government currently faces a class action from single parents who have been through IVF, who have been classed as “socially infertile” and therefore unable to access Medicare rebates, which require a medical rationale, such as trying for more than a year with a heterosexual partner.
“There is a pattern here of single people not being considered in fertility care,” says Kerner. At a basic level, she notes the “forms in clinic environments where you have to cross out the lines for a partner to sign. There’s a lot of examples where it’s assumed there is a partner.
“No women in partnership face the same legal risks.”
Despite what advocates say is a growing “coalition of voices” for change, there is still a lack of understanding of the depth of this issue politically.
“We got nothing in response from Minister Butler, a token letter of acknowledgement,” says Kerner. “It’s been pretty sad how hard it is to get people to take an interest in the rights of single mothers.”
Health Minister Mark Butler and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland were contacted for comment.
* Name has been changed.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 13, 2025 as "Singled out".
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