Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMA President, with Steve Price, Radio 2UE

The head of the AMA, their President, Dr Kerryn Phelps, joins me on the line. Good morning, Doctor.

PHELPS: Good morning, Steve.

PRICE: Do you think it's discriminatory?

PHELPS: It is. It is discriminatory. There's no other word for it.

PRICE: Surely, IVF was developed for women who have been unable to give birth through natural means, as in having sex with their partner, and they have been infertile.

PHELPS: Well, that would apply to women who are in lesbian relationships.

PRICE: Why so?

PHELPS: Well, because if they're having sex with their partners they can't get pregnant in that way, and so…

PRICE: But surely, lesbians having sex together are not doing so in a bid to produce a child.

PHELPS: Neither are most heterosexual couples who are having sex. During most of their relationships they're not having sex for procreation.

PRICE: The key word there is neither are most of. I mean, two lesbian women can't naturally conceive a child.

PHELPS: Well, they can. They can get donor sperm. But if they do that at home, then they are at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, and that the safer way is to go into an artificial insemination program which is supervised medically and provided by a clinic.

PRICE: So you believe that it should be commonplace for lesbian women to be able to access IVF so that they can then produce children?

PHELPS: They're taxpayers. Why shouldn't they have access to the same benefits of reproductive technology as anybody else?

PRICE: Would you accept that the majority of the community would not feel like that?

PHELPS: I think that this is an issue that the community perhaps needs to be educated about. I mean, if we have a look, for example, at the issue of single women having children and lesbians having children, because they're actually separate issues.

But let's have a look, first of all, at same-sex parents. A recent study by the American Academy of Paediatrics - and I'll quote them exactly - quote, 'The weight of evidence gathered during several decades using diverse samples and methodologies is persuasive in demonstrating that there is no systematic difference between gay and non-gay parents in emotional health, parenting skills and attitudes towards parenting.'

'No data have pointed to any risk to children as a result of growing up in a family with one or more gay parents.'

So the question we have to ask is, on what basis is this discriminatory legislation being proposed?

PRICE: I presume you'd make it very simple and you would say that we were designed as men and women to produce children but we were not designed as women and women or men and men to produce children.

I mean, I'm not a conservative in many of my views, which I'm sure you're aware of. I seem to be very conservative in this view. But I just have a very simplistic view of this. There are men and there are women and they can produce children. Women and women can't.

PHELPS: Child production and child rearing are two different issues. And if you look at cultures around the world, it's not a majority culture for the biological mother and father to do all of the child rearing.

I mean, if you have a look at, for example, the kibbutzes in Israel, you have the community who raise children, you have people who go out to work and you have others whose job is to raise the children.

In many cultures this is not the norm, and through history it's not necessarily the norm. And so we need to look at procreation quite separately to child rearing. And if the real concern is about the rearing of the child, the weight of medical evidence, internationally, is that there is no difference.

And so what are we actually arguing about? We're arguing about the methodology of becoming pregnant. And the thing is that the couples who go along to IVF to have reproductive technology to assist them in becoming pregnant can't get pregnant by the natural means of a male and a female getting together, whether they're heterosexual or homosexual.

And the issue is that you can't just say to women who are in same-sex relationships, 'you know, just go along and find a bloke', because that's not what they want to do. It's like saying to a heterosexual woman whose husband is infertile, 'just go and sleep with another fellow, you'll be right.'

PRICE: Can I ask whether your own sexuality needs to be made evident here?

PHELPS: Oh, I don't think I've made any secret…

PRICE: No, you haven't. That's why I don't have a problem asking you about it. I mean, do you think if we had a male heterosexual head of the AMA that the AMA would hold the same view? I mean, you are speaking here not as Kerryn Phelps, you are speaking as a representative of the medical community in general.

PHELPS: Yes, and I'm actually very confident that I'm speaking on AMA policy because up until this point, Trevor Mudge, who is our Vice President, who is a male IVF specialist, has made exactly the same points, that we ought not to be discriminating in any medical treatment based on a person's sexuality, ethnic background or anything else.

I mean, it would be like saying we should be excluding Catholics or any other religious group, or people from non-English speaking backgrounds, from reproductive technologies because we have some problem with the way they bring their children up. It's just as…

PRICE: It's interesting you used the word there, Doctor, 'Catholic', given that in New South Wales this is not an issue but it is in Victoria where they have a Labor Government and a Catholic Premier.

PHELPS: Well, I believe that the Victorian Premier has already said that they would not move under state legislation to change their state laws to discriminate. So I don't think you can even…

PRICE: Well, the state laws there already discriminate.

PHELPS: Well, I think it's important that state laws are not permitted to discriminate. And I think you need to ask if this law is allowed to exclude some groups, then what happens next? Do we have exclusion of some groups of women from particular types of employment on fairly flimsy excuses?

PRICE: I mean, I think that's what the High Court was concerned about. Do you think, though, that the community - and I go back to a question I asked you at the beginning - do you think there is general support in the community for lesbian women to use medical technology to have children?

PHELPS: I think if the community understands the issues that they will see that this is purely an issue of discrimination and if they look carefully at the statement by the American Academy of Paediatrics, which is an august and learned body, and it shows that - and they are satisfied that the child is not disadvantaged which is really what this argument is based upon.

And the argument that children are in any way disadvantaged by being brought up by same-sex parents has been completely abolished by the evidence over decades, which has been compiled by the American Academy of Paediatrics. And I think that should give solace to people who are concerned. And I don't believe also that most people in Australia would truly believe that heterosexuality is necessarily a prerequisite…

PRICE: Careful.

PHELPS: …for bringing up children. Well, I mean…

PRICE: No. Well, I have said often people should need a licence to have children.

PHELPS: Well, I mean, this is the point. I mean, you spend a day or two in the Family Court in any major capital city and it's not - it really shows you that not every heterosexual family is going to provide a happy and stable and safe environment for a child.

So you can't discriminate along the lines of sexuality or along the lines of whether somebody is a single female or in a same-sex relationship because the evidence just doesn't stack up. And I think when people really think their way through this, they'll see that it's a false distinction that's being made for no good reason.

PRICE: Thanks for joining the debate.

PHELPS: My pleasure.

Ends