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#the people involved in an opposite-sex relationship are infertile or a woman is unable to carry a baby to term;
#the people involved in a same-sex relationship want to have a child, and they want the child to share the genetic heritage of at least one of them; or,
#a couple wish want to include another person one or more other people as the parent parents of their child.
Whatever the circumstances are, having a child through assisted reproduction inevitably involves one or more of:
The 2004 federal ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7vzj Assisted Human Reproduction Act]'' regulates the scientific and commercial aspects of assisted reproduction. From a family law perspective, the important parts of this act make it illegal to sell eggs or sperm, and say that a surrogate mother can't be given money for her services apart from compensation for her expenses.
The provincial ''[[Family Law Act]]'' lets people make agreements when they are having a child by assisted reproduction that say which of the parties to the agreement will and won't be a legal parent of the child. (This part of the act is really awesome because it lets people decide who the parents of a child will be, for all purposes of the law of British Columbia, without having to go to court to get an order saying who the parents of a child are.) Under the ''Family Law Act'', a child can have up to six legal parents if everyone agrees:
#up to two people who intend to have the child;
#a surrogate mother; and,
#the spouse of a surrogate mother.
==Assisted reproduction==
Assisted reproduction refers to the use of different kinds of technologies to help people conceive and carry a child to term when they can't, or don't want to do so, through natural reproduction. "Natural reproduction," of course, is a fancy way of saying ''sex''.
===Donors===