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Minerva Medicolegale 2007 March;127(1):5-19

Copyright © 2007 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: Italian

Homosexual parenthood according to culture, society, religion, science, law and legal medicine. Part one

Iorio M.

Dipartimento di Anatomia, Farmacologia e Medicina Legale dell’Università di Torino

Homosexual parenthood sees two opposing factions dispute the medical, religious, legal and social legitimacy of “children of an impossible desire” (Bonaccorsi). On the one hand, researches carried out in countries where the phenomenon is widespread (USA, UK) conclude that “homosexuality is compatible with the role of parenthood and does not constitute a risk factor for children” (American Psychiatric Association, 1999). On the other, this natural right impacts the intangible principle of reality in which a man and a woman are necessary to make a baby; homosexual parenthood endeavours to make the impossible possible, the child raised by gay parents sees “the gender difference, which underlies the construction of individual identity, denied” (J.P. Winter), while he has the right to have a father and a mother. The ongoing debate demands an enlarged multifocal analysis of homosexual parenthood. Through the examination of 150 years of literature, the first part of the present paper addresses the cultural, social, religious and biomedical aspects and the second the legal and medico-legal aspects of the problem.