Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The issue of donor-assisted pregnancy and so on. My understanding is that a baby produced in this way will be entitled, on reaching 18 years of age, to information regarding his or her genetic mother but will have not have any right to a relationship per sewith the mother, and vice versa. The Minister might say that the same currently applies in relation to sperm donation, which is another issue. However, without being sexist, I believe that biologically there is a slight difference between the two situations. In one case the sperm is donated and in the other a woman somewhere has carried the baby for nine months. To tell me that is the same thing is, in my view, to misunderstand what equality is. Equality in these cases does not mean one equals one; rather, it means same and equal. It means equality of rights and equality of standing. Sometimes, to ensure equality one has to favour one situation over another. As I have often said, if we were to treat all of the children of the nation equally we would never provide an SNA in a classroom or resource teacher hours, because if we provided that service for the child with the disability we would have to provide it to every other child. Equality means that one recognises a situation as different and takes compensatory measures to deal with the inequality. In this case, because it is not an issue of mathematical equality, special rights must be afforded to mothers. While the status must be equal, there must be a recognition that the relationship with the baby will not be the same in both cases.

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