The Austrian Parliament in Vienna will now consider the ruling which has lifted a ban on sperm donations for lesbian couples.

An Austrian court has overturned a prohibition on sperm donations for lesbian couples. The High Court found no “convincing or grave reasons” to support the ban, a standard set by the European Court of Human Rights.

The court dismissed the notion put forward by legislators that a relaxation of the ban would create surrogate motherhood and ruled that artificial insemination posed no ethical or moral concerns.

Saliently, the court rejected arguments that the ban was required to protect families, the court observing that same-sex couples did not replace heterosexual marriages and thus could not jeopardize them. The decision will now go before the Austrian Parliament.

The ruling focused specifically on lesbian couples, and so there remains a question as to whether single women would be afforded the same treatment.