With the advances in assisted reproduction technology (ART), such as surrogacy and in vitro fertilization, more people both inside and outside the traditional relationships of a biological mother and father have a chance to have a child. These families consist of single parents and also same sex couples. With same sex relationships, a third party has to be involved, which could be either a surrogate mother or a male donor. Unfortunately, there are still many people in society that are homophobic. Lesbian co-mothers are growing in population. ART has contributed to a significant increase in the number of lesbian and gay individuals choosing to raise children. Most lesbian couples obtain a child from either a past heterosexual relationship or by alternative insemination where the child then has two mothers and a male donor. People within society are concerned about this because it is not a traditional type of family. They feel that a child should have both a male and female figure represented in a family to make an ideal environment. Gay couples also have a hard time involving ART and children. One reason for this is because gay male couples have to go through both artificial insemination and surrogacy laws. The way that this usually works is that a gay male couple will find a woman who is willing to be a surrogate mother. The woman is artificially inseminated with semen from one of the two males and delivers the baby to the couple after the birth. One of the major problems with this procedure is that surrogate mothers can change their minds after birth and keep the baby. Contracts between the adults are not valid. Law and social practice feel that women that are bearing the child have an overly close connection with their child. This then means that the biological mother becomes the legal mother. Unfortunately, this defeats the whole purpose of the surrogate mother for couples that cannot produce the baby themselves. In a gay male couple, one of the males is considered the biological father but, the non-biological father does not have any rights in this situation. Since the couple is not recognized, almost full custody would probably go to the mother. This leaves the couple with no child and the biological father with some visitation rights. With assisted reproductive technology, there are various families today that need to be recognized. There have been studies demonstrating that lesbian co-mothers have done a good job as parents by giving the care and support a child needs to grow. By refusing to acknowledge this change in family structure, the courts are discriminating against same sex marriages. They need to realize that there are more factors involved. These couples should be more recognized with legislation to help further integrate them into society. It does not seem fair for a mother who agreed to give up her child to a loving gay couple has the ability to take back the child. There needs to be more laws recognizing same sex marriages because these modern families have the same human rights and emotional abilities as traditional families to raise good moral children. The overall goal is to have an environment that is the most beneficial to the child.