After Massachusetts led the way on gay marriage, other states followed. The Bay State may lead again on gay parenting,  if one influential medical organization gets its way.

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine has released new ethical guidelines advising fertility clinics across the country not to deny access to assisted-reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF) on the basis of sexual orientation. In Massachusetts, which has the highest per capita use of assisted-reproduction in the nation, some clinics have been working with lesbian couples since the late 1980s and gay men — who require the added complexity of a gestational surrogate — since the late 1990s. The Reproductive Science Center in Lexington, which runs the website GayIVF, claims the facilitation of New England’s first in vitro birth for a gay male couple, in 1998.

The new ASRM guidelines, which are not binding, states “there is no persuasive evidence that children are harmed or disadvantaged solely by being raised by single parents, unmarried parents, or gay and lesbian parents.”