Spanish clinic and travel agency offer gay marriage and fertility deal

As niche package tours go it is one of the most original and precisely targeted. As of this week, British lesbians are being invited to dig into their pockets, catch a flight to the Spanish costas and come back either pregnant, married or both.

The offer comes from a fertility clinic and a gay and lesbian travel agency, which have launched joint package tours to what has now become one of the most socially tolerant countries in Europe.

Together they have spotted a growing trend among British lesbians, who increasingly travel to clinics in liberal Spain for insemination treatment, which has become more difficult in Britain since sperm donors lost the right to remain anonymous in 2005.



"We noticed the increase in British women coming to us as soon as the law was changed," said Dr Rafael Bernabeu, founder of the Instituto Bernabeu clinic in Alicante, eastern Spain. "Here we can still offer that anonymity, so people are coming to us."

Bernabeu said his clinic saw 30 British women a month. About 40% of British women seeking donor insemination were single and many were lesbians. "We don't ask questions about people's sexuality, so I can't give exact figures," he said. "But often they come with same-sex partners or simply tell us that they are lesbians."

He said that couples, gay and straight, who wanted fertility treatment were often worried about the effect on a child of knowing that they could track down their missing biological parent. "Many couples in this situation do not want problems of that kind," he said. The guarantee of anonymity means Spanish clinics have few problems finding sperm and egg donors, whose numbers fell dramatically in Britain after 2005 as people worried about getting a knock on the door in 18 years' time.

Full story here.