Lesbian couple fight for child born in Canada

[GleefulGlitch]

Story is in the Daily Mail if anyone wants to read it.

The jist is a british women living in Canada had a 9 year relationship with a Canadian women resulting in their marriage.

They used a sperm donor and the British women carried and birthed a child. Both women were on the BC.

The Canadian women wanted to take a job in the UAE however due to their laws as a lesbian she would be refused so she asked Bio mum to remove her name from the childs BC . This was done via the courts 1 year after the childs birth.

Canadian women went on to work in the UAE but later gave the job up and asked bio mum to put her name back on the BC. Bio mum refused there relationship had already ended.
Various things went through court which prevented Bio mum bringing the child to England or even applying for the childs Canadian passport.

Time passed and bio mum and the childs bio dad got together and had another child a boy abd fled the country.

Bio mum was arrested in Jersery and according to the article will be sent back to Canada with the child.

None bio mum wants custody/visitation.

In my opinion this should be denied.
The Canadian women as no bioligical ties to the child and chose to have her name removed from the BC therefore relinquishing parental responsibility so she could apply for a job.
The child is now 4 years old and could be taken away from her mother and brother and given to a women who has had no contact with her for 3 years and is no biological relation.

I am interested in hearing other peoples thought. Thanks.

If the Canadian woman hasn't been (or being trying to) paying child maintenance or maintaining a relationship with the child for the last 3 years, then I don't see why she should get custody of the child in question as she is a complete stranger to the child in question and has no biological link.

This is such a tricky situation and I think more information is needed to give a full answer.

If the Canadian woman was still having contact with the child and still financially supporting the child then they have a relationship so should be allowed to continue that.

However if when the contact and things stopped when she moved to the UAE then she has no right to see the child.

Also you ask a good question. Does removing yourself from the BC does it remove your parental rights?

British woman was monumentally stupid to attempt to remove her child from Canada before the custody issue had been resolved by the courts.

I think this should be treated the same way as any other pair of separated parents. They were together at the time of the child's birth and both took on full parental responsibility.

Non bio mum has same rights and responsibilities as any non residential parent - gets to see her child, also has to pay child support. Same if she was a dad who's child was born via sperm donor, or if they had adopted the child together.

As spelled out under Canadian law: familylaw.lss.bc.ca/children/parenting-guardianship/who-parent

Fail to see why anyone who is not a biological parent should be on a BC.

That is not the place for recording who the bio-parents are currently in a relationship with, or who is currently looking after the child.

But that's exactly what a birth certificate is! It's the place where you record the person or people who are parenting the child. In the UK, there are a couple of situations in which a non-birth parent is automatically presumed to be the legal parent already, and one of those situations goes back hundreds of years. This is not a new thing.

Anyway, I agree with others: if the mum who went to the UAE was supporting her child and in contact, then her rights ought to be upheld, just as they should be if she were male. That said, I would imagine with a male-female couple who were both biological parents, the parent who had been working overseas might well come out worse in a custody arrangement. It's sad for that parent, but AFAIK courts do try to keep the child's interests at the centre, and for the child, the important thing is to keep continuity with the parent who's been their main carer.

There's so much fannying about with birth certificates these days that I'm wondering if we should completely change them. My niece is adopted and, now she's in her teens, hates the fact that her birth certificate bears the names of the people who failed to care for her and not the names of the people she calls mum and dad. If she wanted to self identify as a male, I believe she could have her bc changed to reflect that (am I right?)

How about a certificate with name, date and place of birth and baby's national insurance or national health number. Parental responsibility can be assigned separately to that.

Yeah, but you only shift the problem along, right? Do away with a birth cert and you still have to have some process for stating who has parental responsibility, and changing the documentation wouldn't change the laws on that. I think changing the law would be pretty complicated, too.

Birth certificates should just say the genetic parents. It helps stop people from finding out that they are about to marry a sibling that they didn't know about. Putting on people who actually raised the child could end up with unintended consequences.

Maybe they should also have a parental responsibility certificate for those who are actually responsible for the child.

Honestly, people marrying unknown siblings is a pretty rare complication!

But the thing is, you need some kind of document to say who is legally responsible for a child, don't you? It doesn't matter whether it's the birth cert or not. That's a red herring.

In the UK, for hundreds of years, the law has treated parental responsibility as something separable from biology. It just does. And I'm pretty sure the UK isn't unique in this.

But that's exactly what a birth certificate is! It's the place where you record the person or people who are parenting the child.

Taking that to its logical conclusion, if the birth parents die and the child ends up in an orphanage, then the bio-parents should be replaced by the name of the orphanage.

I can't help but think that BCs are more about registering your existence and to provide some basic objective facts about yourself. Such as where you were born and where you came from in ancestral terms. The sorts of facts that do not vary and are not about your current living circumstances or emotional relationships.

There are other ways to register who currently has PR.

But BCs are not about providing basic objective facts.

It may be that they should be, and it might be that the situation you describe with the orphanage (or, erm, being in care?) should happen. But the fact is it doesn't.

The law (and I realise I keep saying UK and only really know England and Wales) is actually quite biased in favour of non-bio dads getting PR. It's slightly less cushy for non-bio mums and for anyone in a same-sex relationship. But I think a lot of people imagine that 'back in the day' birth certificates were just biological information for a child. That is not, and never has been, the case.

Theere's so much fannying about with birth certificates these days that I'm wondering if we should completely change them. My niece is adopted and, now she's in her teens, hates the fact that her birth certificate bears the names of the people who failed to care for her and not the names of the people she calls mum and dad. If she wanted to self identify as a male, I believe she could have her bc changed to reflect that (am I right?)

Nothing is going to change who her bio-parents are or what her chromosomes are. Or date of birth or place of birth. And these are pertinent to her birth and existence.

Other aspects may be important in other contexts, such as who she has the strongest bond with. They are just not pertinent in the context of a birth certificate IMO.

Birth certificates should just say the genetic parents. That’s a nice idea but how will you prove exactly who the genetic parents are?

Statistically in most cases you can be reasonably sure that the woman who gave birth to the child is the genetic mother (although it’s not 100%, she could be a surrogate carrying the fertilised egg of another woman). But even if the woman is the genetic mother , who can say with 100% certainty who the father is? That’s why, in English law the convention is that a child born within a marriage is the child of that marriage even if people had good reason to think the mother had slept with someone else.

Nowadays with DNA testing it could be quickly proved whether the father named on the BC is actually the father but do we really want to DNA test every man, woman and child before a birth can be registered? And if the test shows that the named man is not the genetic father, then what? Do we check a (currently non existent) data base? Or check every man in a 20m/100m/etc radius to find the culprit?

All this is interesting but we are getting far away from the OP - should the Canadian woman have her parental rights re-established?

I don’t think the woman can be blamed for having to change details on the birth certificate for blatantly discriminatory reasons.

The rest - v messy.

should the Canadian woman have her parental rights re-established?

My original opinion was based on the article.
However there are facts that are not included which I feel would chang my original opinion.

Did the women have an agreement that the Canadian mums name be removed from BC for work reasons but PR still exists?

Did Canadian mum financial support the child they had PR for?

As a non bio parent is adoption required or is a name on a BC, even if not bio parent, enough to give PR?

I

I think it’s rather suss that the birth mum ended up running off with the “sperm donor” of all people.

But yeah... messy. The idea that you can casually remove yourself from a child’s birth certificate - madness.

I don’t think it’s in the best interests of the child to be used as a pawn in a bitter fight between her mothers, ultimately.

Would we call Canadian woman a mother?

She did not carry the child and removed herself from her BC within a year of her birth and has not seen the 4 yo for 3 years admittedly because bio mum fled the country.

Is a mother or father those things simply because of bio connection?
Or because their name is on the BC?
Or because they provide financially for the child?
Or because they raise the child?

Is it a combination of all of the above?

Your implication here OP is that any woman who has to use a surrogate or who adopts a child is not a mother. Which is a pretty gross stand point.

The link posted earlier said that the non biological parent remains the parent unless the person changed their mind about being the child's parent. i suppose it could be argued that the non biological mother changed her mind by removing herself from the birth certificate.

It's that removal from the BC that makes this tricky I think. Further complicated by the fact that the child is with both biological parents now.

Your implication here OP is that any woman who has to use a surrogate or who adopts a child is not a mother. Which is a pretty gross stand point.

Erm. Nope.

Please read my posts.

My original opinion was that Canadian mum removed herself from the BC so to me that meant giving up PR. Nothing to do with her not being bio mum.

On reflection and given my list of question my original opinion could change.

You have chosen to find offence and create a hyperbole. So be it.

Would we call Canadian woman a mother?

She did not carry the child

What does that have to do with it? Loads of mothers don't carry their children. Implying that women who don't carry their own children are not mothers is pretty unpleasant.

Would we call Canadian woman a mother?

What else can we call her?

She is a woman who planned to have a child. She was in a loving relationship with the birth mother through the pregnancy and birth. I’m sure she loved the child and wishes she still had a relationship with the child.

I used the word “mother” kind of loosely and out of kindness, to be honest. Because, as much as I believe the child has zero to gain from being forced to have contact with this woman, I feel for the woman.

I used the word “mother” kind of loosely and out of kindness, to be honest. Because, as much as I believe the child has zero to gain from being forced to have contact with this woman, I feel for the woman.

YY, this, exactly.

What does that have to do with it?Loads of mothers don't carry their children. Implying that women who don't carry their own children are not mothers is pretty unpleasant.

I posted lots of questions after that including "is it a combination of all of the above". Why ignore them and just pick out that one?

When we think of a mother do we not think first of the women who carried and birthed a child?
Yes plenty if women become mothers in other ways however what is your first connection to the mother-child relationship?

You jumped on that first question because you choose to be offended. Fine its your choice.