DM -Italy erases names of gay mothers from birth certs

It changed about 15 years ago to allow gay parents to be named on birth certificates. I get your point- birth certificates as biological - but realistically many aren't and many of those kids would otherwise have 'unknown' for the second parent

Also agree, the birth certificate belongs to the child, not the parents whether biological or raising the child.

I have my child’s birth certificate beside me and it unequivocally gives “Father’s name” and “Father’s Occupation”.
If it had been a woman you were married to instead though then that same birth certificate would say ‘parent’ in place of ‘father’.

If your looking at it from a genetics in medicine point of view knowing one of the parents had X narrows down your differential but it doesn't prove it you need to do the test. We have tests for most genetic disease now so knowing family history is even less important if you have the money to fund the testing

I am directly disputing “The ‘father’ on a birth certificate has always been the second parent with legal responsibility for the child. ’Father’ has never really meant biological father”.

It is simply not true. There was an assumption that people take marriage vows “forsaking all others” would be in good faith, therefore the man a woman was married to must be the biological father of her children. Any laxness about it would be to spare a child any ‘dishonour’ of being born out of wedlock. A father is not just ‘a second parent with legal responsibility’.

Continued fudging is not necessarily the best way forward.
I don't think it's fudging to have mother + other parent on the bc. There is no genetic testing for the other parent whatever sex.

I think this is only partially relevant. I would guess that almost everyone's family tree includes fathers who were not actually the fathers...

”On a wider point, this thread - along with many others atm - is a worrying illustration of how much kneejerk homophobia is creeping back because of the reaction to gender ideology nonsense. It's real backlash stuff and people need to be more careful.”

Bollocks. Stop accusing us of homophobia, because that is not what this is.

As I understand it, this is a discussion about legal changes which have been brought in without it being publicized and concern for how that might impact the child. It is nothing to do with an irrational hatred of lesbians.

I have my child’s birth certificate beside me and it unequivocally gives “Father’s name” and “Father’s Occupation”.

So in the early 2000s in Scotland, it was supposedly the father who was recorded on the birth certificate. When the “Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland Act 1965) was written, however, it does appear that because of the different morality at the time, the listed father was generally the woman’s husband and father may not have meant biological father, as I had always assumed, other than that, in the majority of cases, the husband was also the father.

So from reading the law, it seems in 1965, if the biological father wasn’t married to the mother, it took an extra effort to get him added. He could be listed, but the mother had to jump through hoops to allow that to happen and I suspect that was mostly about the moral values of the time. Unmarried mothers were very much frowned upon.

So presumably, it was quite well understood, if never openly mentioned, that if a man married a pregnant woman, even if he was not the father, he would be listed, perhaps because not listing anyone was scandalous. Presumably, according to the morals of the time, it was better to have any husband, who would be listed as the father, as otherwise the child would be considered to be a bastard, which was very much frowned upon.

So those saying it’s realistically always been the man legally attached to the woman ahead of the child’s biological father are in fact more correct than those of us assuming it’s always been the biological father.

It strikes me that this all stems from earlier times, when women couldn’t own property and therefore virtually needed a man to be able to exist. So legally having a husband was more important for the child than knowing who its father was. Genetics were obviously important, which is why Queens always had to be virginal, but obviously birth certificates have always been more of a fudge than I had realized when it comes to fathers.

It has crossed my mind, reading this thread, that perhaps only one parent could be listed, that being the mother, but of course now, even that is somewhat complicated as the birth mother and the genetic mother are no longer always the same.

So I don’t have any answers, other than it makes sense to me to have it specified what role the second parent listed has in relation to the child. And perhaps we need to bear in mind that biological parentage is actually more important now than it used to be, as we recognize the clear effects of genetics on health.

I feel that perhaps those making law should perhaps start again from scratch and work out what a birth certificate should usefully document and why, and take it from there. Continued fudging is not necessarily the best way forward.

I don't think gender should come into it at all. A birth certificate should simply state biological sex. That's important information and can be used for all manner of scientific, medical and other uses. Gender, as it is now, appears to be less useful.

How about the grandchildren or great-grandchildren? How do they find out about their ancestry if their genetic heritage isn’t in the expected place?

None of this counters my point.

when birth certificates began no one could envisage the technological advances that would cause all the current issues.

but it was widely known that not every baby born to a married woman would be the biological offspring of the husband. No one at the register office said ‘but Mrs Smith, your husband was away with his regiment 9 months ago!’

There is definitely something to be said for a redesigned birth certificate,
or maybe everyone gets a short form, and then there are 'options' for long form dependent on the situation.

BC is not there to benefit and give recognition to someone who is considered a non-biological parent at time of birth though is it, it is (and needs to be an official record of the child’s birth).
This also benefits the child though! I agree with @NicCageisnotNickCave has written above. I used to think that the birth certificate should be about the biological parents but, on reflection, I don't think enforcing this is in anyone's best interest. Yes, a child should be allowed to have information about their genetic heritage but I don't think a birth certificate is actually the right place for this.

SignalBox but married status is relevant. It’s not deception as you would put it, to say on the BC that the husband is the dad, just because he is married to the mum who has given birth. That holds as a non—deception in law even if the whole world and their doctor knows otherwise. I’m not sure what you think happens?

Obviously the use of donor eggs and/or donor sperm confuses matters for a 'biological' birth certificate, if somewhere did decide to go down the route if two documents. I'm not sure the best way to record that. I guess maybe a section which has birth mother/father but next to it a tick box to say if own egg or donor, or similar.

Maybe birth certificates should show spaces for both biological parents and additional socially-linked parents if appropriate? And whilst at it there could be spaces for both sex and gender, with the latter generally left blank unless the parents are intending to bring their child up under the straitjacket of genderconformity, but the owner of the birth certificate can add a gender later if they choose to (the bio sex wouldn't ever change without scientific evidence of a DSD which led to the wrong sex being written)

@NicCageisnotNickCave the rules for ‘father’ is that he has to be there, present at the registering of birth or to be married to the mother. The assumption is that he is the biological father, but because that can only be proved by a DNA test (only available since the 1990s), the assumption was that the couple presenting or married were the genuine biological parents. The fact that paternity couldn’t be proved until recently doesn’t mean that father on the birth certificate is not intended to mean biological father, but just ‘second parent’, or ‘unrelated person who at the time of birth promises to play the role of parent for the rest of this child’s life’.

Enough of all of this retrospective skewing of meaning to suit modern purposes.

I also thought birth certificates were about the biological parents but they seem to be more about who the parents at birth are regardless of biology. I do think having two parts would be useful as sometimes it is good to know your biology.

yes, both sets of information useful and important to record, they are just distinctly different!

BC is not there to benefit and give recognition to someone who is considered a non-biological parent at time of birth though is it, it is (and needs to be an official record of the child’s birth).

And as a record of birth not of genetic parentage it would be the mother who gave birth who would be on there. I agree that is a complex area, however to protect women I do think it’s incredibly important that a woman who gives birth has the right to be considered the baby’s mother.

Maybe there beds ti be two documents for such situations.

A birth certificate which names the actual birth parent - so the birth mother and the birth father, if known. A legal document which states fact, a useful document for the child in the future perhaps.

And an official legal parent document which names the legal parents of the child be it a woman and man, two women, two men, one man, one woman, etc. so naming the people who will be the legal adults with parental responsibility for the child.

This is silly. Biologically speaking, the father is the male whose sperm unites with the ova to make the baby. The meaning of the word ‘father’ does not require his presence beyond conception.

The ‘father’ on a birth certificate has always been the second parent with legal responsibility for the child.

’Father’ has never really meant biological father - if a separated woman has a baby with a new male partner whilst still legally married to her husband, her husband is the second parent with legal responsibility (this caused a massive headache for my US born, UK resident friend and her daughter’s ability to prove her entitlement to a British passport via her bio dad, because legal dad was not British 🙀)

Years ago a baby’s nationality was determined by mother only because the ‘woman a baby came out of’ is far easier to objectively ascertain than who the biological father is (pre DNA).

If a married/civil partnered couple (F&F) have had a baby via an anon sperm donor then surely the wife of the mother has just as much right to be in the ‘second parent with legal responsibility’ box as a F&M couple who used a sperm donor due to male infertility?

personally, I think birth certificates should provide the baby with as much factual information as possible and if that means adding some extra boxes then so be it (I am very anti surrogacy but as it can’t be eradicated and the baby deserves the info then perhaps extra boxes are necessary to keep up with tech)

I absolutely do not agree with erasing the names of lesbian women from the already-existing birth certificates of their children - those women took on the legal second parent role in exactly the same way the man in a straight couple using a sperm donor did.

If Italy want to change the way legal parental responsibility is recorded in future by adding extra boxes so be it but most sperm donation is anon until the kid is 18 so the ‘father’ box cannot contain any useful info anyway 🤷‍♀️

it’s already obvious that a female second parent isn’t bio dad so having a blank ‘father’ box and adding an extra category doesn’t actually tell anyone any more than was already obvious!

And presumably non-anon donors (eg a friend of the couple) can’t be recorded as ‘father’ without also having some unwanted legal responsibility conferred?

Raising children requires a lot of resources and two willing and able adults should be able to share legal responsibility regardless of whether parent two is a biological parent or not - anything that removes the ability of female-female couple to make that legal agreement will ultimately be a negative for the children they are raising - the child will have less legal security and likely less psychological security too.

(the complex issues around gamete donation is a subject for another thread 😬)

@Drenton nope a father is someone who raises a child, he is simply a sperm donor.

So what is the main purpose of a birth certificate?
It is to prove the 'existence' of someone and their acknowledgement by the state.
Second to that is it to
a) record people with initial parental responsibility
or
b) record the biological 'parents'
or both?

In the old days a and b were synonymous more or less. But they aren't any more.