Gay couples wanting a child are set to get easier access to fertility treatment under a shake-up of the law.
The creation of 'civil partnerships' - which give committed homosexual couples similar legal rights to married partners - alongside shifting social attitudes have persuaded ministers the time is ripe for a rethink.
In a memo to a Commons inquiry into regulation of fertility treatment, the Department of Health argues the current law was 'framed in terms of heterosexual couples' and changes should be considered 'to better recognise the wider range of people who seek and receive assisted reproduction treatment in the 21st century'.
While some doctors already offer IVF to lesbian couples or single women in private clinics, others refuse, forcing women into homemade arrangements involving male friends and turkey basters. The law obliges private and NHS clinics to consider an unborn baby's potential welfare and 'need for a father' before allowing treatment, meaning women without male partners may have to show a child would have close male role models.
Ministers will not consult the public on the review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, the 1990 law governing treatment, until next spring and the Department of Health insists it has taken no view on whether to scrap the stipulation for fathers.
But a spokeswoman for the department said moves to let committed gay couples register their partnerships - opening the door to tax and pension benefits, and providing for 'divorces' and custody of any children - changed matters, adding: 'This is looking at the consequences the civil partnerships legislation has on the current legislation. (The Act) is obviously from 1990, and because of the changes that have happened since we are looking at the whole area.'
New controls are also likely on fertility clinics selling sperm over the internet and surrogacy.
Ministers are also studying possible developments, such as production of 'artificial sperm' for infertile men. Scientists have grown mouse sperm from embyronic stem cells: in theory, the technique could be used for humans.
Gay rights groups say the requirement to consider the need for a father is interpreted in differing ways, with lesbians often facing more intensive cross-examination than straights. The stipulation has been condemned as an anachronism by Suzi Leather, chief executive of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
Campaigner Ben Summerskill, head of Stonewall, said: 'There is no evidence that this legislation ... has actually protected anyone from anything, and there is a range of US research which suggests that children who grow up in gay families are just as well balanced and developed as children who grow up in heterosexual families.'
The debate over whether IVF children need a father is controversial, with the British Medical Association's ethics committee understood to be divided. The association is arguing that in the absence of evidence of harm, the need for a father should be 'subsumed' into a requirement to consider a child's welfare.
Professor Alison Murdoch, chair of the British Fertility Society, said she personally favoured extending treatment for gay couples.
'We have to stand back from it and say, what is the evidence that there is any harm to anybody from them having a child? Children need to be brought up in a loving, caring environment: it's the loving care that is important, not the sexuality of the parent,' she said.
'We have been in a situation in the past where lesbian couples have been getting sperm from the gay community - they're unscreened, they're untested, there's no legal framework.
'People who come to me and say "can you help?", one could argue that they are the people being responsible.' The British Association of Social Workers is also pushing for the clause stipulating the 'need for a father' to be replaced by 'need for a family', bringing fertility treatment in line with adoption.
Religious groups are likely to be furious at such a change, perceived as an attack on traditional values.
