The Australian government is pushing ahead with legal changes this week to prevent single women and lesbians obtaining fertility treatment, although a national poll showed Australians to be divided on the issue.
The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act, which will allow Australia's six states to restrict access to fertility services.
The changes were approved by government parliamentarians in a meeting yesterday, a spokesman said.
But the opposition Labor Party pledged to block the legislation in the upper house of parliament, the Senate, with support from the small but influential Democrats.
Labor and the Democrats hold the balance of power in the Senate, where legislative amendments must be approved.
The coalition government has pledged to introduce amendments to Australia's Sex Discrimination Act to allow the states, which administer health services, to give access to fertility treatment solely to married women "or those women living with a man in a de facto relationship".
The issue of whether single women and lesbians wanting children should have the same rights as women with male partners to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) programmes and artificial insemination has gripped Australia over recent weeks.
The debate intensified after a court in the state of Victoria ruled that preventing single women from making use of IVF programmes breached current sex discrimination legislation.
The coalition members agreed at the meeting yesterday that the original intention of the sex discrimination law was to give equal opportunity to single women to get finance and employment, not fertility treatment.
However, a national A.C. Nielsen poll published yesterday showed 47 per cent of 2,062 people surveyed between Friday and Sunday opposed banning access to IVF for single women, while 42 per cent supported a ban.