BBC article about same sex couple

And would you also remove legal parental responsibility from the second female parent of a baby (i.e. the female spouse/civil partner of a woman who conceives by donor sperm)? Or just remove her name from the birth certificate but leave her parental responsibility to be recorded otherwise, somehow?

Since April 2009, second female parents have had parental responsibility from birth if in a civil partnership/married to the birth mother, and have not had to go through adoption proceedings to be a parent. I really cannot see how children would benefit from reverting to the previous law, where lesbian parents had to go through lengthy legal adoption proceedings. The birth certificate of the child reflects the child's legal parents from birth, which makes sense to me. How would the child of lesbian parents benefit from a birth certificate that says "unknown donor" and does not provide evidence of the child's second legal parent?

Is it still the case that married couples are presumed to be the parents of a child born in that relationship? In which case, they are the babies legal parents.

That's what I mean. Unlikely that was intended but having seen the state of some forms from NHS I can well believe someone managed to just miss off a load and not notice!

I took that with a BIG pinch of salt. What organisation has ever had diversity forms that only included white ethnicities and Christianity?

She said more shockingly, they were handed another form to register a child at the surgery and that form asked for ethnicity but only offered white ethnicities as an option and under religion, only Christian religions.

Sounds like someone really screwed up writing the forms!

100% agree re birth certificates. They are a record of biological relationships, especially regarding the mother-child relationship.

Don't commissioning parents have to formally adopt children of surrogacy arrangements? Surely the child of such an arrangement - altruistic or commercial - should have the right to have their biological relationships accurately recorded?

And yes, regarding the parent/carer record, you're right. I should have written

Parent 1/Carer 1(name) Relationship (mother/father/legal guardian etc)
Parent 2/Carer 2 (name) Relationship (mother/father/legal guardian etc)

On the point of the father being named on the birth certificate, I think in the case of donor conceived children, as the child in this BBC article is, I think it could say 'unknown donor' (rather than just unknown), so the child when is old enough (I think it is 16) knows they are donor conceived they can go to the donor registry in the U.K. and find their genetic father. Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the birth certificate belongs to them and they have a right to know their identity (the original meaning of the word).

In this case the child will know he is donor conceived as soon as he has a biology lesson about reproduction, but in heterosexual couples the child will not necessarily know this and it could mean they don't know their genetic origins, siblings etc.

Children who are adopted have an original birth certificate that is locked away so the true record can be found. This is not the case for surrogate-born babies as I understand it, as the parental order provides a new birth certificate that appears to be true and so the child relies on the parents to tell the truth.

There is certainly a case for additional fields on the birth certificate naming where the gametes that made them, came from.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405661817300035

Why just parent? Often in schools etc it is parent/carer to recognise that not all children are in the care of their parents.

I disagree about the birth certificate though - it should be mother and father (and fatger left blank if not known) as a re ord of genetic linkage. Unless a child is adopted they still have rights attached to their parenthood, including inheritance.

I suspect it's more that language has meaning, and people have to make an extra effort to use Newspeak, hence the natural - accurate! - language slips through when talking sense.

About that article... some of our schools registered the children under Parent/Guardian 1 and Parent/Guardian 2. Sometimes I registered the child, sometimes dh registered child, and whichever of us registered the child put their details under Parent 1. Parent 1 was always the first point of contact. However, with the school that had Mother and Father on the registration, it didn't matter which of us registered the child, which of us signed the form, it was always me, the Mother, who was the first point of contact.

This isn't like erasing the word and the relationship 'mother'. This isn't about biology. Isn't this one of the situations when it is exactly about gender roles? When it is about parenting the child, rather than biology, perhaps such documents should have:
Parent 1(name) Relationship (mother/father)
Parent 2 (name) Relationship (mother/father)

I noticed in the BBC 10pm TV news they were talking about 'mixed gender' categories in the Olympics though (they meant mixed sex relay sports). The problem with the English language is the 'sex - tee hee!' element leading to broadcasters preferring the more genteel word 'gender', which didn't matter until transgender ideology came along and deliberately muddied the waters.