[JURIST] A French court on Thursday permitted four lesbian women to adopt their wives’ children born in foreign countries through artificial insemination. France has legalized same-sex marriage and adoption, but only heterosexual couples are authorized to have medically assisted fertilization. In April 2014 a lower Versailles court ruled that a birth mother had committed fraud by having artificial insemination in Belgium, and the birth mother’s wife was not allowed to adopt the child. Versailles’ appeals court overturned this ruling before the case headed to France’s highest court [official website, in French], which ruled that medically assisted fertilization performed abroad is “not an obstacle” for women [AP report] wishing to adopt the children of their partners. Same-sex couples were granted the right to marry in May 2013.

Same-sex marriage continues to be hotly debated issue, both in the US and abroad. France’s highest court ruled in January that a same-sex French-Moroccan couple may legally marry [JURIST report]. Also in January the US Supreme Court agreed [JURIST report] to rule on same-sex marriage, granting certiorari in four separate cases. In August Ugandan Attorney General Peter Nyomb filed [JURIST report] an appeal against the constitutional court ruling that struck down the nation’s anti-homosexuality law. Last January the Nigerian president signed [JURIST report] the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act into law, banning same-sex marriage and criminalizing same-sex relationships. Similar laws exist in Singapore and Jamaica [JURIST reports].