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.

The child is the most important individual in this in my view. It is the biology that is important

The child is the most important individual in this in my view. It is the biology that is important

If the child is donor conceived this gives the sperm donor parental rights.

If the mother is raped this gives the mother's rapist parental rights.

Neither scenario are in the child's best interests.

The thing is that homosexual couples are already more likely to do donor conception in ways that are child-centered. Not universally, of course, there are always bad actors.

But when you recognise from the beginning of your fertility journey that you will need to use a donor, you’re probably more likely to do things like a reading donor conceived sub reddits and look at all the ramifications. You will inevitably tell your child. No one in these cases is disputing that the child has a donor. Your concerns for donor conceived children are admirable, but they affect mostly children born to straight couples. Unless they effectively address that they seem disingenuous.

You have still not addressed how these kinds of regulations will be practically implemented to include hetero couples, who are the primary users of egg donation.

I do not believe that anyone has a right to a child, nor do I believe in comercial surrogacy, But pretending that a patriarcal society will allow, or pay for, universal DNA testing is unrealistic and allowing all the donor conceived children just to slip through because of this but demand it of lesbian couples is discrimination. As long as straight couples can have the social parent listed on the birth certificate solely based on the parent’s partnership, the lesbians can too.

So at 18 does the child get identifying information on the other children? Their half siblings?

What if those siblings are not yet 18? Does it mean the circumstances of their birth are known to the 18 year old half sibling, but not to them?

Very interesting discussion btw. Thought provoking.

I agree with you on this one.

@Triplemove , thank you for being so gracious. I appreciate it. I have so much respect for same sex parents and I'm sorry about my flippancy. I am now taking tne time to really read and digest before responding.

Because being a donor is not the same thing as being a parent.

It's no more rewriting biology than having the mother's husband on the birth certificate. Yet no one (for what reason I simply can't imagine) questions this.

Agreed. This is why the law as it currently stands makes sense, and it does centre the interests of the child.

I suspect this whole subject has come up in the wake of the Twitter shitstorm in which KJ Keene claimed only biological 'parents' should be named on a birth certificate. A lesbian mum whose wife was the other parent happened to agree with her.

What followed this exchange was a long, unedifying GC vs. LGB rights argument, which again conflated gender critical views with a desire to strip lesbian and gay families of their rights. It also set LGB and GC against each other, with the predictable arguments that 'it isn't just trans rights GCs want to attack; it's all of us, just like the US alt right, and they'll be coming for you next ....'

None of this is remotely helpful, and it fails to take into account the nuances of the law which has already been put in place to protect children's interests.

Why else did Freddie McConnell fail in the suit to have the legal, and necessary category of mother expunged from a child's birth certificate?

When it ain't broke, don't 'fix' it.

@Datun - if they've registered on the donor sibling registry you can make contact.

You can apply for information about your child's siblings before they turn 18 and you get to know their year of birth and their sex but nothing further.

All my son's siblings are older than he is so in theory he can contact them in a couple of years but we won't know if any of them have registered on the Donor Sibling Registry until he turns 18.

Just to reiterate a point I made further down. All this information is only available to the donor conceived child, not the parent(s) who used donor gametes.

So yes I guess at this stage, some of the siblings may well be in touch with one another but all they will know about his and his nearest in age sister is their sex and year of birth because they're both still under 18. Also of course some of them may be from the same family! I know a couple of women who've used the same donor to conceive siblings.

So at what point are they given enough information to identify the fact they shouldn't have a sexual relationship? Or sometimes aren't they?

Searching questions so thanks for answering!

The limit on the number of families does make that less likely. My son has fewer than 10 siblings who have been born over an 8 year period. And he was conceived at a clinic hundreds of miles from where we now live.

But assuming siblings did meet and were sexually attracted, I've always told my son how important it is to talk about the fact he's donor conceived with any prospective sexual partner so if he met someone who was also DC, they could exchange information about their donors.

Under 18, the information they already have would mean they'd quickly be able to identify if they had the same donor. We already know his nationality, height, weight at time of donation, eye and hair colour, interests, educational background and some information about where and how he grew up. That information is available to parents and DC children from the moment there is a live birth.

Over 18, they will have the donor's name and last known address. He has also written a letter to any children conceived so I guess they can compare that too.

There has been some developments in the state of Victoria to begin to overcome some of the complexity in how to deal with family situations. They have started with recording adoptive parents along with biological parents on birth certificates.

https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/05/adopted-people-can-have-biological-parents-on-birth-certificates-under-victorian-bill

Many posters on this thread have commented that there are ways to accommodate the needs of the child while showing parental responsibility. And many posters on this thread who have been accused of being concerned only as it is pointed out recently have been concerned about these issues for a long time and posting on this board about those concerns.

That was not aimed at any one in particular donor. I was bringing to light that some issues have started to be addressed in Australia.

The reason why this issue didn’t come to the fore until people started wanting to change the wording of birth certificates, opening up who was allowed to be named on it to biologically unrelated people, and wanting to change ‘mother to father’ and vice versa, isn’t ‘homophobia’ or ‘transphobia’.

The fact that heterosexuals have quietly been using donor gametes and naming biologically unrelated adults on birth certificates, is because registering of births began before the gamete donation and implantation industry began and before DNA testing was possible. It was always taken to be truthful that the man married to the mother, or attending the birth registration with her, really was the father of the registered child and that the woman who gave birth used her own gametes. This assumption was never updated when donors started to be used, presumably because it was all done very quietly, privately, and no one really knew about the scale of it and the ethics and consequences have never been properly explored. I was under the impression that it was extremely rare.

Obviously this ‘quietly/privately’ system of registering a birth does not work for same sex couples who want a biologically unrelated partner to be registered as a parent on the birth certificate, because there can be no assumption that the opposite sex gamete in the equation belongs to the partner who is married or civil partner to, or attends with, the registering parent. It is the push from same sex couples, or parents who identify as being a member of the opposite sex, to change how births are registered which has pushed this issue to the fore. It is no longer a ‘quietly/privately’ issue as a result of this push.

The reason why people, such as myself, are openly objecting to this now, is because we disagree with the changes, disagree with the lack of child-centredness around donor gametes and surrogacy, disagree with routine omissions and falsehoods on a child’s birth certificate to suit the wishes and convenience of the adults pushing for them. The fact that these people pushing for the changes are lesbian, gay and who identify as ‘trans’ is irrelevant to why I, and presumably others object to them.

Its lazy to call objections to something homophobic or transphobic, just because it is someone homosexual or ‘trans’-identified who is doing it.

Birth certificates have never been about "registering who the biological parents are". Ever.

If that was the case, you'd need a DNA test to fill in a birth certificate.

Birth certificates exist to register the LEGAL parents.

Under UK law, a married man is the legal father of any child his wife gives birth to, even if there's no way he can be the biological father ie they used donor sperm. (Unless there's a paternity challenge and the court rules a declaration of parentage, which is relatively rare.)

That's why married women can put their husband down on a birth certificate without him being present (and could legally put their husband's name on a birth certificate without his knowledge or consent) but unmarried woman cannot legally fill in the "father's name" part of a birth certificate unless the man in question either attends in person, or submits a Statutory Declaration of Parentage form via post.

If couples use donor sperm, the donor's name would not be on the birth certificate.

Mumsnet is generally not well-educated about the law over birth certificates. Whenever someone starts a thread about being abandoned by their boyfriend after getting pregnant, or starts a thread saying they're pregnant from a ONS and the man doesn't want to know, there are always loads of replies saying "whatever you do, don't put his name on the birth certificate." But a woman can't legally put a man she's not married to on a birth certificate without his signed consent.

This is just another way for the far right invasion of Mumsnet to rant about "wokeness" by pretending to care about children while happily throwing lesbians under a bus. (Feminist chat has always had a problem with homophobia and lesbiphobia.) If you genuinely believed this harms children you would be petitioning to an end to the UK law that holds married men as the legal father regardless of biology. Or you'd be lobbying to make it illegal for married couples who use donor sperm to put themselves down as the parents.

But you won't because those are married heterosexual couples, and not gay people.

I think that sounds like a really positive development @Helleofabore and maybe this is the solution for donor conceived people too? So they can update their birth certificate at 18 to reflect their biological as well as social heritage.

If you genuinely believed this harms children you would be petitioning to an end to the UK law that holds married men as the legal father regardless of biology. Or you'd be lobbying to make it illegal for married couples who use donor sperm to put themselves down as the parents
Yes, exactly

Birth certificates have never been about "registering who the biological parents are". Ever.

If that was the case, you'd need a DNA test to fill in a birth certificate.

Births have been registered long before DNA testing or donor gamete implantation was possible.

Please think about this instead of perceiving things from a modern technological angle and making assumptions about intentions prior to our modern technology.

There used to be a different set of reliable assumptions.

It could be done in a variety of ways. Even if the ‘biological father’ field was left blank for whatever reason. This is done now and has been done since it has been destigmatised for having a blank space.

It could be done in a way that a ‘short’ version showed parental responsibility maybe. These should all be discussed and without accusations.

This creep of language and the inferred ‘intention’ behind the meaning of words is a political tactic - very much used by TRAs.

So at what point are they given enough information to identify the fact they shouldn't have a sexual relationship? Or sometimes aren't they?

I've thought about this quite a bit. We know the first name of our sperm donor, I think this is the case for all donors who donate at sperm banks. When my DC are old enough to have sex I will explain the situation and they will know to check.

I know there is one other child conceived using the same donor as my DC who is the opposite sex and a similar age to one of my DC. This child could live anywhere in the world. There is a minuscule chance they could meet my DC by chance but it's not impossible.

My DC have always known the name of their donor. When they chat to other donor conceived kids they mention his name sometimes. I imagine when they are adults and if they get to the stage they are planning to have sex with another donor conceived person it would come up in conversation very early on!

Birth certificates existed to give children the details of their birth as was known at that time. That was based on the assumption that the woman would not lie about the parentage of her child. Of course, this did happen where a mother lied either knowingly or unknowingly about the father of her child. However, that could have been considered fraud as it is a falsification of the document.

attempts to describe that a birth certificate ‘was never intended to record biological parents’ using previous falsifications is not accurately describing the intention of the certificate. No. Of course ‘DNA’ was not needed in the past! It was based on previous expectations of marriage and society.

It is past time for this discussion to be had to find a way to recentre the child’s needs and to make provision for parental responsibility. It should have been addressed when the first donor conception occurred. It is long overdue.

@TangledRoots

Its lazy to call objections to something homophobic or transphobic, just because it is someone homosexual or ‘trans’-identified who is doing it.

it’s not lazy when you’ve been asked multiple times how exactly you envision straight couples being held to equally stringent regulation and you say they won’t be. Then it’s an accurate assessment of discrimination/homophobia.

transphobia has nothing to do with it, since unless a trans individual is also in a homosexual relationship, none of this applies to them, and it’s already been established that the person that physically carries a child is the mother, regardless of preferred pronouns.

I have outlined above how I believe donors should be on birth certificates in an additional separate section irrespective of the sexual orientation of the mother.

What are you even on about here?

trying to imply guilt by association is not an argument.