Last updated 5 March 2025

When either married couples, a man and a woman living in a genuine domestic relationship or a female same-sex de facto couple consent to artificial insemination or IVF procedures, both partners are presumed to be the legal parents of children born as a result of those procedures, regardless of the source of the ovum or semen that created the embryo.

If donor ovum or semen are used in an IVF procedure resulting in the birth of a child, the donor is presumed not to be the legal parent.

Section 21 of the Status of Children Act 1978 (Qld) provides that where a married woman or a woman in a de facto relationship (including a same-sex relationship) gives birth as a result of using artificial insemination without the consent of her partner, or where the woman has no partner, the donor of the semen used has no rights or liabilities in relation to the child born as a result of that procedure. This exclusion of liabilities and rights also applies to a man donating semen to a single woman. The man who donated the sperm for the conception of a child resulting from an artificial insemination procedure would have a father’s rights or liabilities in relation to the child only if he later married the mother.