Lesbian mothers should be on birth certificates

[SapphosRock]

Great article from Kathleen Stock.

unherd.com/2023/07/lesbian-mothers-should-be-on-birth-certificates/

It is surprising to me that anyone who supports women's rights would oppose lesbian parents having equal rights to straight parents.

From the article:

Naming a second lesbian parent on a child’s birth certificate is a family-friendly move. Arguably, if you squint a bit, it’s even a socially conservative move — though agreeing probably depends on whether you take, as your baseline, a society where lesbians will have children anyway; or whether you think of it as a cultural aberration that could, with discouragement, be stopped. Either way, putting a second lesbian partner on a birth certificate officially defines and legitimises her parenting relation within the family, allowing the burdens and joys to be shared between two adults, and adding a second layer of protection for the child. Family stability is important for good childhood outcomes, and this measure seems to provide some.

In Australia and Canada, at least, it is a requirement for sperm donors to be contactable once the resulting children turn 18. Our children know some information about their donor and we have a thorough medical history for him and his immediate family, and a couple of photos of him when he was young. It is not clear what including his name to a certificate would add to the benefit of our children.

Their birth certificates list both my wife and me as parents and there is an annotation than my my wife is the birth mother. In Australia, at least, this is all possible. There are some state level variations.

it might not have occurred to some of the “but the biological reality” commenters here that it is not unheard of for one mother in a lesbian couple to carry the child, with the other mother providing the egg. So, who would you have on the certificate in this case and who would you exclude?

While reading this thread one thought has struck me (and I apologise if it has been covered)

That the child should know who their biological parents are is important.

However the birth certificate (in its current form) is a public document that anyone can buy a copy of. Should biological parentage be public knowledge or should only legal parentage (like the adoption certificate replacing the birth certificate in public recird i believe?)

Excellent point.

I have an adoption certificate which legally replaced my birth certificate.

Knowing my biological heritage was my legal mothers choice and hers alone, despite what others have said on here.

Not it’s not to show legal parenthood, it’s to show biological parent/s. It’s for ans about the child, not a document to affirm the adults involved.

If legal parenthood is changed , then another document is given eg on adoption.

Adopted children don’t have two birth certificates. They have a birth certificate that shows their bio parent/s. And an a document called an “extract from the adopted children’s register “ which shows their adoptive parents.

The extract is used for all purposes as if it were a BC. But legally it’s not the same thing, it looks similar but not identical .

The fact that legal and social parents are not necessarily the same as biological parents is not a new thing in UK law. We’ve been dealing with it for a century.

The laws has behaved dishonesty in allowing children born of a spend donor to have the mothers husband listed as bio father. Although this is part of the wider rule that assumes that if the MF couple are married, the M must be the father.

That might make the adults feel better but it’s not fair to the child IMO.

I think it's become clear throughut this thread that there are people with opinions who dont actually know how lesbian conception works.

Your post is offensive.

Haven’t rtft, but it’s important to remember that birth certificates are not like car registration documents to register ownership of an inanimate object.

Birth certificates are an identity document to register a living, unique, individual human being is who they are and is no other person. They are not an inanimate object or possession belonging to their parent which need proof of ownership. Their childhood, when their parents have the right to use their birth certificate, is hopefully only the first fifth or sixth of their life.

The fact that the birth certificate is also used to name who has parental responsibility, since that is overwhelmingly going to be the two biological and genetic parents, is something else it is used for. It is not its primary purpose.

The registration of a birth and the certificate to prove that registration, are not for the convenience, practicality or feels of the parents. It is a proof of that individual, as being a unique and specific person and having citizen status.

No one on this thread has clearly advocated for universal DNA testing on registration to catch all the straight couples denying their child the right to their true, verified genetic heritage.

Your summary of how the situation in Italy came about is so laughably inaccurate that it makes me want to discount everything you’ve said. One of the pair of us is Italian, from Padova. I know the situation in Italy. Which is why we chose to have to have children the way we did— with two undeniable mothers. Unless you want to either state that the genetic link or the gestational one is unimportant.

I also find this statement in the OP both manipulative and illogical:

It is surprising to me that anyone who supports women's rights would oppose lesbian parents having equal rights to straight parents.

Conception of a mammal is only possible through a heterosexual act, or, from the distancing of that heterosexual coupling using containers, syringes and scientific equipment, to put a physical distance between the coupling pair.

This inability for two people of the same sex to create a baby, or for a baby to be created without the input of both sexes, is not a rights issue any more than our inability as mammals to change sex is a rights issue. It is a matter of nature, biology, whatever you want to call it.

Recognising the fact that two women can’t make a baby together is not opposing any equality rights. It is manipulative to insinuate that a feminist who recognises this, actively opposes women’s rights.

Oh behave.

Would you say that about a woman who cant conceive in a straight relationship?

This comment is not taking into account that straight couples are infertile all the time and use gamete donation, or the very common lesbian situation of having different genetic and gestational mothers who are both part of the family unit.

“conception by heterosexual act” is not what happens when straight couples use gamete donation.

why can straight men easily use gamete donation to have a child with their partner but homosexual women require extra regulation? It’s absolutely a issue of women’s right, even if you personally don’t want homosexual women to have equal rights to men.

👏

Indeed. It is the registration of a child’s birth. Which is why the “but only biological reality” crew are missing the point.

date and place of birth, sex, name at birth. These things must be there. It is for proving the existence of the child, not to enable them to research their genealogy or medical history. There are other ways to record that.

The recording of parents is precisely to record who is responsible for the child. And unless and until certain posters are willing to advocate for listing sperm donors instead of the mothers’ husbands in the case of straight couples, your homophobia slip is showing.

Yes. It is not a rights issue that some heterosexual people cannot conceive. It is a biology/nature issue.

Recognising this does not oppose anyone’s rights.

The child is the important one in all of this - they should know their biological mother at the very least. Of course as I have said earlier there are many children who don't have a father on their certificate or the father stated is not the biological father but short of DNA testing at birth that is not possible to rectify. The issue as far as I am concerned is that it takes a male and a female to produce a child and therefore that is what should be on the birth certificate.

Next you’ll be saying that only a man and a women should be able to get married.

unless and until you will advocate for sperm donors to replace legal but nonbiological fathers on certificates, and unless and until you would record both mothers if one carried and the other provided the egg, this is just homophobia dressed up as hypocrisy.

but thank you for being clear about where you stand. There is a common ground to be had here, but we won’t get there if the homophobic position is not made clear and defended.

date and place of birth, sex, name at birth. These things must be there. It is for proving the existence of the child

This isn’t enough though is it. You could get two babies born in the same district on the same date with the same name - eg Jane Smith. How would their birth certificates differentiate who was who?

The birth certificate needs to document whose womb the baby came from on that date too.

Exactly

Agree, birth certificate is record of birth, a separate 'parental rights and RESPONSIBILITIES' certificate would be of use.
As long as the child is always centred!

The recording of parents is precisely to record who is responsible for the child. And unless and until certain posters are willing to advocate for listing sperm donors instead of the mothers’ husbands in the case of straight couples, your homophobia slip is showing.
Yes, precisely, and think this was touched on upthread but don't think it's been properly answered (apologies if it has)
but you'd be for sperm donors being recorded on the birth certificate instead of the husband in the case of straight couples if "biology only', right?

The birth certificate needs to document whose womb the baby came from on that date too.

that’s a good point and I agree. Disambiguating who the child is will sometimes require identifying a parent. And because you can’t know in advance if this has happened, that means recording parents in all cases.

But it doesn’t require the provider of the sperm to be listed in preference to the wife of the birth mother – someone who will actually be caring for the child and can be expected to continue to do so in the tragic event of the death of the birth mother. Our kids’ sperm donor lives on the other side of the world. How would recording his name on the certificate instead of mine help our kids if something happened to my wife?

@ChokkaQuokka
"unless and until you will advocate for sperm donors to replace legal but nonbiological fathers on certificates, and unless and until you would record both mothers if one carried and the other provided the egg, this is just homophobia dressed up as hypocrisy."

Not quite sure what you meant by your comment - a non-biological parent is that just that "a non biological parent." A birth certificate records the biological parent - that is a fact. The birth certificate is a statement of fact.

That's a really good point
Should everyone have access to details of whether someone was adopted or not

Furthermore, when births were first registered and birth certificates issued, it was a reasonable assumption that the man who registered the birth and/or was married to the mother, whose womb the baby came from, was the biological father.

Tracing genealogy may seem like a secondary purpose for a birth certificate, but then again, so is proving parental responsibility. However, both of these things are intrinsic to a birth certificate of a naturally conceived child when the registering parents are telling the truth. Why should the children of donor conception have fewer rights than non-donor conceived children, to know their own genealogy and to be able to trace it through public record?

These are serious considerations, since donor conception is a fairly new thing and the impact upon the child throughout their life hasn’t really been considered to the depth and rigour it deserves. This is because it is being pushed by adults who aren’t really thinking about long term consequences. They just feel they have the same ‘right’ to a child that people who conceive naturally have. They feel that nature and biology is a rights issue. When it clearly isn’t. This reasoning leads to the thinking which asserts that ‘changing sex’ is a rights issue. It isn’t.