I’d like to strip it back to the question of, why is it of any benefit to the children born by donor conception to married lesbian couples, for the Italian government to take away their other mother from being recorded on that child’s birth certificate?
The only benefit is that the BC states biological reality. You could argue that that is more to benefit the state than the individual child maybe. This being the sex and gender board, I think we're all keenly aware of the potential consequences of allowing feelings to replace biology on legal documents.
Please someone explain to me why you think their other mother should not be on their BC? This the other mother who is also picking the child up from school, making medical decisions about them etc etc and who will continue to always be the child’s other mother even if they were to divorce from the mum in future?
But you can say that about a step father who does all those things, has raised the child as his own from birth and would always be thier dad if he and the mum divorced. That step father isn't and shouldn't be on the BC, but should and is able in the UK to adopt the DC and take on parental rights and responsibilities. If Italy allowed same sex couples to do the same, I think that would be better than knowingly putting non birth parents on a BC.
Posters who are wanting BCs with full genetic disclosure- a very risky to children and women position to be advocating for- please bear in mind that the mum who did not give birth, whom some of you are arguing has no right to be on the BC, may be the child’s genetic mother, if the lesbian couple used her egg in IVF with the donor sperm.
Donors of gametes arenotparents in the eyes of the law which is why they are not identified on the BC. That’s a different question.
I agree BCs are not for laying out genetic information, they are a legal record of birth.
I feel as though I might need to state for the avoidance of anyone’s doubt that parents who give each other gametes to have a baby together arenotdonors, they are parents, before anyone tries to suggest that normal egg donation rules should be applied to lesbian couples transferring eggs between themselves.
Emotionally no, but legally yes they are. A birth mother is the birth mother regardless of who the egg donor is, I can't see a way of changing that legally or practically, no matter how much people might want it in their own circumstances. It's not that different to the transman who wanted to be named as father on the child's BC on that score. Donors aren't parents and I can't see how we can have an exception to that.
I can’t see any non-lesbophobic reason why any of this explicit discrimination by the Italian government benefits the children of lesbian couples or lesbian couples themselves, or indeed would benefit wider society. So it’s a shock to see so many posts thinking this is a good move.
The Italian government's ideology behind this absolutely is lesbophobic, no argument from me there. They let same sex couples go into parenting on the basis that they'd both be on the BC, then took that away with no other option to replace it eg adoption, parental rights order etc. That was cruel and unfair on the families affected by a decision made for political point scoring. But I think that campaigning for same sex adoption is a better solution overall than campaigning for the right to lie on a legal document.