France's lower house of parliament is to definitively approve on Tuesday a law that will allow single women and lesbians access to medically assisted reproduction for the first time.
The final vote on the wide-ranging bioethics law, presented by French President Emmanuel Macron's Government, has been much awaited by LGBT groups, who had pushed for the reproduction measure since France legalised same-sex marriage in 2013.
The new law will expand access to fertility treatments such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation (IVF), currently reserved only for infertile heterosexual couples.
In France, fertility treatments are free — which would now include lesbian couples and single women.
Health Minister Olivier Veran said French authorities are getting ready to apply the new law as quickly as possible, so that the first children could be conceived by the end of the year. The vote marks the end of a protracted, two-year debate in parliament.
