Three fathers now.

I really want to know why the Times is pushing this so relentlessy, another article about it today

I wonder too.
The Times has at least two employees who have obtained children through surrogacy but they must be very influential to be able to push this to this extent.
It does seem to be a softening up process in advance of the Law Commission presenting proposals for law reform re surrogacy to parliament scheduled for early 2022 which is, in itself concerning.
Who has overall control of editorial policy and why would the Times be pushing this? Starting to wonder about News Corp and the Murdoch family. Of course New York has recently passed laws to allow commercial surrogacy and this is a world wide business.
That there is a wider agenda I have no doubt.

Not sure what BC means.

I’m going to go back on what I said about not speaking for other people, but my impression is that on the FWR board, people are not more sympathetic to straight couples who use surrogates. Surrogacy is very much treated as a women’s rights issue.

It’s not for me to say what people in general think.

That to me is more of a ‘minefield’ ...

However legally, multiple marriages and relationships have no effect on parental rights.

I’m not instinctively that concerned about a child having 3 legal guardians, but if three parents are OK, are 4? At what point does a child effectively have no clear parents?

‘
frickina I think the main concern people have is around surrogacy and removal of rights and recognition of the birth mother.’

A right so the ‘whatever next’ comment from OP actually had nothing to do with the story being about 3 men on the BC and was actually about surrogacy in general? Including surrogacy involving g straight couple?
I read that entirely wrong then...

frickina I think the main concern people have is around surrogacy and removal of rights and recognition of the birth mother.

It’s really difficult to know what is being described here as it relates to US law.

Cases like this are reported as heart warming events, but where in the story is the woman/women who risked her life and health to produce these children? The mother is sometimes included as a selfless but nameless individual who ‘will stay involved’, but the magnitude of what has been given is minimised.

In the U.K. the birth mother is always named on the original birth certificate, and although this may be sealed the child has automatic access at 18.

As you say these laws are not the same everywhere.

‘ so what happens to these legal protections if the thruple splits?

sounds like a minefield’

My guess that they, like most people,
Aren’t planning on splitting up.
My friend’s father has been married 3 times and she has siblings, half siblings and step-siblings. That to me is more of a ‘minefield’ ...

We waited specifically for the law to change before we had our children - so that we could both be recognised as legal parents on our kids birth certificates. We had a lot of hoops to jump through, that straight couples don’t have to bother about - not least having a Civil Partnership ( there was no marriage equality available to us) before conceiving, and the way in which was conceived was also regulated.
So to us, the birth certificate is important, particularly are there are many countries who don’t recognise either our Civil Partnership or subsequent marriage nor our right to be called parents to our own children.
DWs home country won’t allow her to give our DCs her citizenship unless she ‘adopts’ her own children here in the U.K. but the U.K. won’t allow her to ‘adopt’ them ( nor would we want her to have to) as she is legally already their mother.

It’s easy to read headlines and make snap judgements, but the reality for many LGBT people in particular is that the more legal protection you can put around your relationship and family the better usually. We don’t always have the luxury of rejecting ‘conventions’ like marriage...

And separated / divorced couples are out of unavoidable circumstances which are far from ideal and we know that this does cause problems. Its not something you really want to be setting out to do to begin with and holding up as an example for others to follow as a lifestyle choice.

As for what a birth certificate means - it’s the first price of proof that you are a parent to your child

Yes, but in the U.K. that is because it is a record of a birth and it is a copy of information recorded by the registrar. It is a birth certificate, not a parent certificate and other documents may also establish a legal parenting relationship.

The record of information held does not belong to the parent or child.

No idea what the law is in the US. They have a completely different attitude to surrogacy and adoption.

It’s a ‘record of biology’ in that it lists the mother - the woman who gave birth - but you are right that it doesn’t necessarily describe a genetic relationship.

The advantage of three fathers: one can always take a holiday

Be absent without being criticised for being absent by outsiders. To hell with the child and whether they want them.

I do wonder about any parent who fucks off for long periods without their child and treats it as a holiday. Very young kids need consistency of one parent at least always being present. Its one thing for one parent to be away working. But if both parents are doing this, and don't have a primary carer present at all times, its not great for the child and their emotional security in their early years. I do think its odd and not right for celebrity couples to dump their kids with the nanny for a week or two whilst they go off and go on holiday or do work. I know how much boarding school damaged family members emotionally. We've seen kids dumped with au pairs and its bloody awful.

Imagine saying 'I need a break from parenting you, so I'm fucking off on holiday' in any other situation. No it wouldn't be considered progressive. Especially if it was a woman doing it.

Their whole attitude to parenting fucking stinks.

Its not thinking about the child first. Its all about their lifestyle and fitting kids in around that. And i despite that in any scenario and the selfishness and lack of thought to the impact of it on kids.

‘A birth certificate reflects biology. It's not a way to validate parents regardless of a family set up.’

Does it though? There’s no DNA requirement and if your a straight couple you can use a donor egg or donor sperm and register as parents without telling anyone and without ever telling the child.

Isn’t it around 10% of men who aren’t biological fathers to their child but believe that they are?

As for what a birth certificate means - it’s the first price of proof that you are a parent to your child, without one it can be very tricky legally and otherwise to show you have responsibility for a child. I even have to carry one with our DCs
passports as I have a different surname and get questioned.
My wife, The non birth mother ( who’s ‘parent’ on our DCs birth certificates to my ‘mother’ ) ironically doesn’t get stopped as they do have her surname...

it exists for the good of the child who needs a family, because we have finally taken off the emphasis on punishing unmarried mothers and correcting their children.

Yes in the U.K., but I think the situation is very different in the US. It’s another of those issues (like gun control, health care) where we are two countries separated by a common language.

Have they written a book?
Of course they have...

Adoption (these days) is not a robust process for giving children away hmm it exists for the good of the child who needs a family

Yes, it's for the good of the child but it is literally the method by which we transfer responsibility of a child from it's birth parents to other people. We cannot force people to parent (and wouldn't want to).

So although surrogacy obviously has an element of bodily autonomy and the woman’s choice around it, it is in not actually built around the woman’s wants, and it’s wrong to present it that way.

I wasn't claiming that surrogacy was built around a woman's wants, just that as a society we agree that we cannot prevent a woman from producing a child, regardless of her reasons for having that child.
One potential reason a woman can have a child, that a lot of people disagree with, is surrogacy.

Adoption (these days) is not a robust process for giving children away it exists for the good of the child who needs a family, because we have finally taken off the emphasis on punishing unmarried mothers and correcting their children. We now acknowledge that open adoption is healthier than closed. We now see that institutionalised childhoods in what we used to call an orphanage is a very damaging start in life for children. So wherever possible we try to find suitable families for children to grow up in. Adoption rightly has very stringent rules around it, eg as to who can adopt. In the UK that’s not something paid for in a commercial way.

So it’s not that adoption is or was a system created for the benefit of women or at their request. If a woman had babies just because she wanted to help and support other people who might like to be given a baby to bring up, that woman would be deemed dangerously irresponsible and mentally unwell. I’d assume that her existing kids would be subject to social services involvement. Any babies she birthed for the purpose of relinquishing would be taken at birth by social services and put into foster care until legal adoption could be arranged for them. The woman would be treated for serious mental health problems.

My point is that the social contract that we understand as ‘surrogacy’ is only ever legitimised as such by the desires of the intended parents. Never by the woman’s wants. We no longer consider her actions as ‘surrogacy’ if she deviates from the IPs‘ requirements or stipulations around the pregnancy.

Like: imagine she insisted on giving the IPs something they didn’t want- pregnancy with a different baby because she used a different egg or sperm than the IPs wanted, or if she gave them another already born young baby instead. Or imagine if she changed her mind about which IPs she wanted to help and gave the baby to a different person or couple instead.

So although surrogacy obviously has an element of bodily autonomy and the woman’s choice around it, it is in not actually built around the woman’s wants, and it’s wrong to present it that way. She is instrumental to others achieving their desires. This is why there is a lot of concern about women’s interests and welfare and rights when it comes to women providing surrogacy for other people.

so what happens to these legal protections if the thruple splits?

sounds like a minefield

Well, in this case the woman who gave birth was actually not the biological mother

Of course she is, the baby didn't appear by magic.

The woman who made the embryo they 'adopted' or were 'gifted' is the genetic mother, the women who was pregnant and have birth is the biological mother and neither child has a social or adopted mother but one has adopted fathers and the second child has one of them, it appears, as a genetic father with the other two as adopted fathers.

All three men are legal parents.

Only one child has half of a link to their DNA and genetic history.

I just hope they are honest with the children and they don't suffer any emotional instability or psychological damage from having been born this way.

Plenty surrogate children do, particularly when they grow up and want to have their own biological children.

They will get all the checks any other parents get

This surrogacy was in California. They do not have background checks.

Has California really stopped accurately recording births?

Yes, some time ago. David Furnish is recorded as the mother on the birth certificates of his children bought from California.

it is the child's birth certificate, belonging to them, recording information important to them about them, ie their biological parent. It is not the parents birth certificate.

Exactly and it violates the convention on the rights of the child to not accurately record their birth.

These men openly state how they didn't know it would be a problem and how Alan went full "mama bear" so the judge found a loophole through which she could grant the legal parenthood to three men.

The mothers of the children may well feature in their lives but I doubt that they will be like mothers but more like a woman they hear from at Christmas and birthdays.

The U.K's first gay dads, the Drewitt Barlows who bought their twins from California dropped the mother, the woman they had promised lifelong friendship to, within a matter of weeks. It's just one example.

The right of gay men to access women's bodies to provide them with progeny is being vociferously defended in the comments...

As it is in the U.K. on similar articles - we can anticipate a sharp increase (rather than the gradual increase in surrogacy we are seeing) if the proposed law reform comes to reflect commercial surrogacy as it is in California and more recently New York.

It's coming.

Whether her choice is to abort, have a child she cannot easily financially support or have a child with a man with a history of not supporting children he's had with other partners, she should also be free to choose to give her child to gay men to raise.

Well of course she should @DedlyMedally, because children are mere commodities owned by their parents, right?

I'm not sure why people are so focused on the birth certificate as an absolute and pure record of biology.

That’s not it. A birth certificate is a record of the event whereby a child was born to a named woman - the mother.

When I left the Catholic Church, I asked my former parish priest if I could have my baptism into the church annulled on account of the fact that I did not consent to being baptised. I was told this could not be done because my baptism was an event that took place and that reality could not be changed.

I’m saddened that the reality of a child being born to a mother can be airbrushed out of that child’s history to create a false history where the child has no named mother.

Huh. While I do not necessarily agree with the idea of three parents, I'm not sure why people are so focused on the birth certificate as an absolute and pure record of biology.

Several people have said "the woman who gives birth is the mother". Well, in this case the woman who gave birth was actually not the biological mother, so whose name should we put on the certificate ? The one who gave birth or the one who shares genes with the baby ? Both ? Neither ?

Also, if the birth certificate absolutely has to reflect biology then I guess women shouldn't be allowed to give birth anonymously. So that those who wish to do so end up giving birth in unsafe conditions instead.

Also, in the name of biological exactitude, we also should test the DNA of every single father to make sure they are the real fathers. If they aren't then we should keep testing until we find the real father. Obviously leaving a blank wouldn't be an option.

See the problem there ?

I actually strongly support the idea that children have a right to know where they came from, but this is not a black and white issue. What about egg and embryo donation in fertility treatment ? The actual biological mother would be the woman who donated the egg, right ? So we should put her name on the birth certificate.

This focus on the birth certificate as some sacrosanct document is a bit ridiculous when you think about it like this.