Children of lesbians have more ’emotional problems’, Daily Mail warns
A group has warned in the Daily Mail that an increase in lesbians having babies could lead to more “emotional problems”.
The newspaper reported today that nearly one IVF baby is born to a woman with a female partner every day in the UK – with 348 born in 2012 according to statistics.
The Mail quoted Dr Trevor Stammers of the Family Education Trust, who told the newspaper the children would have more “emotional problems”.
He said: “The large recent increase in children born to mothers with a same sex partner at the time of the birth is concerning, in the light of a number of recent research studies which have shown – for example – a four-fold increase in emotional problems in children of same-sex parents, compared with children raised by both their biological parents.”
The Family Education Trust bills itself as a “non-religious” group – but the widely-discredited study to which Dr Stammers appears to be referring was conducted by researchers at the Catholic University of America.
The study states that “children in same-sex families are at 2.38 times the risk of emotional problems compared to children in opposite-sex families” – not four times as Dr Stammers claims.
The research has also has been criticized by a multitude of researchers, with an independent study in Denmark finding that the children of lesbian parents “showed no significant differences” from others.
The Mail also claims that the figures mark a “14-fold” increase since 2003 – which is unsurprising given that same-sex couples have only had equal rights to IVF since 2008’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.
The sperm bank was, in fact, open to straight couples, same-sex couples and single women.
