DM -Italy erases names of gay mothers from birth certs

DNA is becoming an increasingly important part of medicine (eg exome
and genome sequencing for diagnostic purposes and screening for gene mutations eg BRCA) and DNA based genealogy websites are becoming more and more affordable.

it won’t be possible for older relatives to ‘lock away’ genetic info in a personal medical record because the child will be able to access the same info via their own DNA.

I have been told that this is why anon sperm donation is no longer an option in the U.K. - 20 odd years ago it started to become clear that donor conceived children would be able to access DNA information (perhaps not the exact identity of the donor, maybe just other relatives, but that would then allow them to track the donor via social media/public records) so best to get in front of it before it happens.

So now all donors are informed that their info will cease to be anon when the child reaches 18.

Anon gametes are still available in other countries but it seems utterly pointless to go abroad for it when tech will reveal their identity eventually anyway.

Plus we know from data collected that children born from donated gametes do best when told early (via things like picture book stories) rather than it be dramatically revealed later on or a secret discovered at adulthood/after the legal parents have passed away.

I’m extremely skeevy about all sorts of fertility tech (just because we CAN doesn’t mean we SHOULD) and totally anti surrogacy but the facts are a) children born using fertility tech exist
and b) statistics tell us that children raised by two women in a committed partnership do well by all yardsticks.

If a married man can be registered as the legal parent on a BC of a child conceived with donor sperm (due to male infertility) then a married woman should be able to do the same.

Pretty sure in E&W children born to lesbians (who fulfil the quite strict criteria set out in law) have ‘mother’ and ‘parent 2’ or similar listed on a BC so no lies or language distortions are taking place and as the child has to be conceived in a clinic setting for this sort of BC to be an option, the child will have info on the donor available on request when the child reaches 18.

Perhaps in time (and as tech becomes cheaper) all gamete donors will have full genomic sequencing that can be attached (with ID anonymised) to the child’s medical record? This would likely mean that the doctors of donor conceived patients will have more info available to them than they will for a patient with an absentee parent or a patient of an adopted child in a closer adoption.

The old civil liberties arguments against DNA databases aren’t able to halt the forward march of tech, which does make me feel a bit skeevy, but we have to find ways to deal with how things actually are (whilst campaigning for law change where relevant) and not just continually insist on what we would prefer them to be.

Fingers crossed that DNA is only used for the good of humanity and not for nefarious purposes/eugenics.

They (posters strongly supporting this) don’t have any valid reasons to support the removal of these women from BCs as far as I can see. I’ve explained the advantages to the child and birth mother and they can’t even give one single disadvantage to the child or family that isn’t factually incorrect or just their own opinion of what should be on a BC and what shouldn’t. They also repeatedly post false information no matter how many times people correct them as justification for their views. When questioned about disadvantages to the child they either just don’t reply or reply with something that isn’t even true.

So I really question some posters motives tbh in supporting this….

You can apply for your full BC abut it depends how old you are

And this is exactly what adopters used to to do and then they would find out by accident and would tail spin their whole life adults who think it’s fine to keep parentage from a child is thinking about self

No I haven't thanks but I probably have no need of a long form BC these days other than sentimental reasons.

Yes. So what if a child, or grandchild wants to find out about their genetic heritage, then the person who has that secret locked away in their own medical records can choose to deny them that information.

We have access to our own medical records.

Our genetics, all the details of the gametes provided and the woman who gestated us should be on our medical records.

Really??

Medical records are private. Are you saying that a baby’s medical records pre-date their birth? I am sure that isn’t true.

Surely any donors are on the mother’s medical records, shared at her discretion and, even if this information is added to the baby’s medical records, it is not public so would not be available for grandchildren, etc to access.

There needs to be a public record of genetic lineage that people can access and isn’t private and confidential like medical records.
The birth certificate is something an adoptee gets access to which tells the truth about their history. How are people supposed to find out about themselves if it is locked up in confidential medical records? There must be some indication of gamete donors on the birth certificate.

Have you tried this already?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adoption-certificate-application-form

Our genetics, all the details of the gametes provided and the woman who gestated us should be on our medical records.

The Birth Certificate is about parental rights and responsibilities at the point of birth and yes it also confers nationality because it brings the child into relationship with the state as well as his or her parents.

It is a certificate of legal personhood and legal relationships as recoded at that point in time. So the relationship of the mother who gave birth and her husband or wife or the legally recognised father or co-mother to the child, and the relationship of the child to the state.

I think that we might be going down a dangerous path if we insist that birth certificates, our relationship with the state and our parents, contains genetic details. There could be a variety of unintended consequences of a negative kind.

We use our birth certificates in a variety of ways, generally for employment, opening a bank account etc I can’t see any reason that our genetic heritage is relevant to most of that.

The need to apply for parental order like everyone else’s or we could a section to the birth certificate called medical parent

but sperm doner is the biological father

Not read the full thread so apologies if this has been answered.

I'm an adoptee and have never had any sort of legal document that names my adoptive parents as my parents. There is a birth certificate I could access once 18 that names my bio mother/father (if named). Then I have a short form BC that has my adoptive name, DOB and place of birth. That's it.

Maybe more recent adoptions are done differently, I'm not sure.

Thank you ElsieBear, CarryOn and Persephone (sorry if I have missed other names) for keeping on arguing for the rights of married lesbians in Italy not to have their names stripped off their own kids birth certificates.

The point is this is the Italian government don’t care if there is a genetic relationship via IVF or not. They allow same sex marriage but not same sex donor insemination in Italy. The Italian government aren’t calling for, or even allowing, actual genetic reality to be recorded on BCs. (That is a terrible idea for safeguarding that naive posters seem to keep pushing for)

The Italian government are simply working on a crude moral punishment of children basis. They just don’t want two women (or two men but let’s have that discussion separately) having kids together. So they are retrospectively taking the non-birth lesbian mother’s name off their kids BCs. That’s it.

If you can’t see a problem with that then that is lesbophobia. Why should married lesbians whose wives give birth be treated differently to married men whose wives give birth, who are allowed to be on the BC?
Why do you think it is better for a child with married parents to live in unnecessary legal precarity simply because only one woman out of the two who is doing the daily parenting, is allowed to be listed on the BC? What happens if the wife who gives birth dies? or the couple splits up?

More importantly it’s not ok for a government retrospectively make some kids second class citizens? It’s not ok for some marriages to be less valid than others. It’s explicit lesbophobia and I hope the European court of human rights will force a change of policy if they can’t do that domestically. It’s an awful thing for a government to do.

Of course the birth certificate is about genetics, that's the whole point.
It's about your bloodline, it's about your history.

I like the idea above, of

1. egg donor (no legal rights)

2. gestational mother (default legal unless someone is in 3 - cases of adoption/surrogacy)

3. legal mother

4. sperm provider (default legal unless someone is in 2 - case of donation)

5. legal father

You say it’s not about genetics, but the birth certificate predates women having another woman’s egg implanted in her womb and predates DNA testing.

So there was a correct assumption that the mother was the mother in all senses of the word before that natural process was split apart by medical intervention.

There was also a faith in the fact that the man showing up to register and/or was married to the mother, was in fact the father - biological/genetic. But since there was no way of proving paternity like we can prove maternity, registrars had to believe it was true.

What you say here is wrong about the purpose of the birth certificate: “It is about who has parental rights and responsibilities at the birth.”

The birth certificate is not just a document for the duration of the childhood of the person, some kind of ‘right to parent’.

It is about the identity of who lives in the country. Births, deaths and marriages are all recorded, so the State has a record of every citizen living or dead and every family.

The birth certificate will used throughout a person’s life as an identity document. It doesn’t exist solely to prove parental responsibility. That is an important use for the birth certificate, but it is not it’s primary purpose.

I know that heterosexual couples with no donors used are the majority, but there are increasing numbers of families where this is not the case, and it doesn’t just concern homosexual couples. The old way is no longer fit for purpose, if it only works for the majority and not for all. We need a new way that doesn’t sideline or other parents in family set ups outside of man+woman (preferably married) = baby. I agree with you that the biological origins of children should never be hidden or dismissed, which is why I think there should be a legal document recording it. That document should look the same for everyone - if you’re in a traditional set up you would just write the mother’s name three times (genetic+gestational mother + legal parent 1) and the father’s twice (genetic father +legal parent2). But there would also need to be a document with just the legal parents on it for purposes where only the legal parents are relevant. (Of which there are probably far more than times where all the info needs to be disclosed).
Your idea of lesbian mothers needing to adopt their own children really doesn’t make sense if (as if fairly frequently done) one mother provides the egg but the other mother carries the pregnancy. - So the non genetically related mother is the one who gives birth.

@Thatgirl1981
If you don't think people with no bio relationship should be on the birth certificate (which is not an unreasonable point of view) how do you deal with donor sperm, or indeed donor eggs?

Also on another point, along with learning about pig arcs etc, one thing I learned from The Archers is that a step parent can apply for parental responsibility as a separate act from adopting.

Nice comment @PomegranateOfPersephone

The birth certificate is not about genetics. It is about who has parental rights and responsibilities at the birth.

That is the woman who gave birth to the baby and forms a dyad with the baby. She is the legal mother regardless of whether the egg is hers or not.

Whoever she is married to will have shared parental rights and responsibilities for whatever children she bears whether there is a genetic relationship to the child or not.

If she is not married she can declare who the father is whether that is correct or not genetically and if he agrees to accepting paternal responsibility he can go with her to the registry office when she registers the baby.

As pp said, if there is any question of a difficult relationship or the mother doesn’t believe him to be a suitable father she doesn’t have to name him. Then he won’t have any rights or responsibilities towards the child. He can apply for parental responsibility through the courts, I think that will only be granted at that point if he is proven to be genetically related to the child.

Anyone interested can find more information on the UK government website.

Point is that a birth certificate legitimises (makes recognised by the state) the relationship between the child and his or her mother plus usually a father who can be presumed to have provided the sperm but not necessarily and it doesn’t matter much to the state that he did or not. It just means that that man or nowadays other woman will assist the mother in providing for, caring for, disciplining etc that child so that the state doesn’t have to.

Pregnancy and birth are the key elements of biology in the birth certificate (clue is in the name?) genetics are not important except in proving paternity where that is in dispute and one or other party wants it proven.

I don’t think people with no biological relationship should be on the BC. It should remain as it is now in the UK, with the mother registering the birth and for the father to be either the man who shows up to register and/or is the man who is her husband, otherwise no father is registered. There’s no need to change what currently works for the majority to accommodate novel methods of family creation.

Now that we have donor gametes used, there should be an optional additional 2 spaces for “genetic” mother and father, if required, and this would need medical evidence and a legal agreement from any donor parent, but this space should not confer any legal responsibility on the named donor parents.

I think any non-biologically related person who wishes to share legal responsibility with the mother, should not be named on the birth certificate, but should apply for a step-parent legal responsibility agreement as per Thatgirl1981 ‘s post yesterday at 20:46. They could apply before the baby is even born to make that as soon after the birth as is possible.

With the Italy thing, I think they should change the law so that same-sex couples who are civil partners/married can apply for the step-parent legal agreement rather than having unrelated people on birth certificates.

I think there should be two documents. One with full details. One with just the legal parents on it. So full birth certificate would need three spaces for ´mother’ -genetic, gestational and legal parent (although that could be two men). Someone in your situation may have ´egg donor xyz fertility clinic AB’ and then you as gestational and legal mother. Legal parents certificate would have someone in your situation listed as mother/parent 1. And the legal parentage certificate should be the one asked for as ID for schools etc in everyday life.
So yes, basically I feel there should be a legal record of Children’s history, that would be freely available to the child at 18. But I think this needs to be set up to ensure that there is no negative day to day impact of parents of donor conceived children (whether within a heterosexual or homosexual relationship or as a single mother). The situation in Italy where one of the child’s mothers is being effectively stripped of parental responsibility is entirely unacceptable. I don’t think it should be an option to keep secrets from children about their genetic origins.

A mother cannot have the father named on the birth certificate unless they are a) married or b) he attends the registry office in person.

So no dice if he’s already done a runner.

If the father’s name IS recorded on the birth certificate he automatically has parental responsibility (if he isn’t recorded he can still acquire parental responsibility via the family courts).

A lone mother with an ex who has parental responsibility for their child via naming on the BC has to theoretically get the absent ex’s agreement on decisions taken on the child’s behalf (eg school choice, permission to take the child on a foreign holiday, changing the child’s name etc) which can obviously be manipulated by the ex as tool for coercive control.

Of course a child should be able to know their biological origins but the current system of birth registry in the U.K. can make recording the father’s name impossible and/or undesirable.

If you have a controlling or absuive male partner and you get pregnant, its a really good idea not to put their name down on the birth cert. (if at all possible). It's easier to escape them and its harder for them to demand access to the child, unless they are very determined and have the money for DNA tests and solicitors.

Every child has a father

and it’s the not having a father in their life and the father shaped whole that we’re trying to correct

No because the child’s need is more paramount that that adult’s

again a lot of talk about the adults that in it’s self is very telling

A mother isn't forced to put a father onto the birth certificate but I do think they should be on there. It's not the mother's document.
I understand in rape cases, a mother wouldn't want to do that. But a record should be kept for the child. If it's not attached altogether, then I don't see how complete information can be passed on. Maybe these days, with computers, there could be a second part to be issued, if so wanted, at 18? But I believe that everyone should have as much information as possible about their biological background.