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.

That’s one hypothetical etymology, but it’s such an old word that’s pretty much conjecture. It’s not clear the original root.

in any case, I am not states that the word mother excludes the biological definition or that it’s unimportant. I’m stating that mother has meant both historically.

A women who experiences a still birth or gives a child up for adoption is a mother, the act of giving birth makes her one.

A woman who raises a child is a mother, the act of mothering makes her one.

An egg donor is not a mother, she neither gives birth nor raises a child.

It is you who are changing meanings, by including the first and last instances but excluding the second. If you want to include the last, it is you who need to change the definition of the word mother.

the current legal process honours the word mother as it has been historically understood.

This is a lie.

Mother is a noun, not a verb, in a legal sense. Stop this sleight of hand.

There seems to be this argument:

1. Lesbians are superior.

2. Lesbians can do no wrong.

Therefore lesbians must be given everything they want.

Most people go along with this, because you think ‘ah lesbians are women, women are nice, therefore double the woman = double the nice - have at it lesbians’.

But no one stops to think about who else should be entitled to these rights lesbians demand or what will be the consequences of certain gates being opened to everyone.

I have observed that men are very much breathing down lesbians necks waiting for them to open things up to them which they had no previous access.

Seriously this falsehood needs to stop.

I'm quoting the law. Not the law as you would like it to be.

And the law is that the woman who carried and gave birth to the child is the legal mother, irrespective of whose gametes were used.

If this is your summary, you have no engaged in any discussion in this thread in good faith.

The argument is that

1. birth certificates currently confer parental responsibility. The woman who gave birth and per partner are automatically included on it as the people who will care for the child from birth. It is in the child’s best interest to give the people caring for them parental responsibility.
2. Because (whether you agree with it or not) the adults named on a birth certificate are automatically conferred parental responsibility, it is not in the child’s best interest to include gamete donors.
3. The identity of a donor can be (and is) formally recorded in medical documentation other than the birth certificate, so there is no need to overhaul the birth certificate.
4. If you want to overhaul the current system so that the birth certificate no longer confers responsibility but is instead a document which only records physical and genetic parentage, it would be impossible to do in an equitable way which accounts for single mothers (who used donors or not) and the donor conceived children of straight couples.
5. Acknowledging a woman’s same sex partner on the birth certificate does not provide a precedent for men to have any rights they don’t already have. If they are a birth mothers partner, they can already be on the birth certificate, regardless of how they identify.

Starting out with the assumption that lesbian parents want to be named on their child’s birth certificate in order to “validate their identity” rather than so that they can care for their children is the opposite of centring the child. It centers your own assumptions about motivations.

I mentioned that the children of lesbian parents are more likely to know that they are donor conceived. I never said that lesbians are universally superior to, or even significantly different from, straight women.

You totally missed the point of what I am saying. I agree, the mother is the one whose womb the baby came from.

The sleight of hand is the one that makes the claim that the birth certificate holds special powers. It reminds me of people saying that doctors ‘assign sex at birth’ as though babies have no sex until the official ‘assigns’ them one. Clearly a falsehood.

The birth certificate is not an ownership document.

Babies are not devoid of a parent with responsibility for them until a registrar ‘assigns them one’ on their birth certificate. Parents are not able to neglect and mistreat their children and they are not prevented from parenting prior to registering the birth and having their ‘parental responsibility assigned’ on a certificate.

The birth certificate is the baby’s identity document. It documents their name, the date, the place of birth and whose womb it came from and if the dad sticks around, he is documented too.

This is a record of who the baby is. It’s identity.

The parents may use the baby’s birth certificate to prove they are the parents, but it is not the certificate itself which gives the parents their responsibility to the child. Nature and biology gave them that, and the certificate is just a record of it.

You’ve missed the point too.

Some lesbians want to divorce biological nature from the meaning of the words ‘parent’, ‘mother’ and ‘father’ so that people who are not biologically related to the child can officially be included on their birth certificate. I don’t not think this is a good idea because:

1. A child has the right to a birth certificate which documents who they truly are as faithfully as is possible.
2. A child is best looked after, either by their biological parents, other biological relatives if their parents don’t have capacity, or biologically unrelated people who have gone through an adoption process to verify their commitment, sincerity and capacity to have legal parental responsibility for them.
3. If you officially allow some people to register biologically unrelated people on a child’s birth certificate as their parents (bypassing the need for the adoption process) you allow anyone and everyone to. This is not in the child’s best interest because of points 1 and 2, furthermore there are harmful people who would be delighted with this divorce of parenthood from biology and to be allowed to be named on a child’s birth certificate so they can claim ‘parental responsibility’ without any adoption process.

So I say hang on, hold your horses. This is a big step officially allowing biologically unrelated people to be named as a child’s parents on their birth certificate for life. It is a big step to officially say that parenthood has no basis in biology and nature. It may seem like ‘just a little thing’ but it’s not, it’s a big thing.

Quote fail ^^ that was responding to Triplemove

How do they manage to have a child together'?

Using a sperm donor.

Both women in the lesbian couple therefore have parental rights and the sperm donor does not have parental rights.

@TangledRoots given the excellent, intelligent, articulate posts on this thread, I think your post is really unfair and disingenuous

I don’t know which particular post you are referring to here, however, I stand by them all, none are unfair and none are disingenuous.

I don’t mind if you think badly of me. It’s no biggie in the scheme of things…. whereas divorcing the biological meaning from the words ‘mother’, ‘father’ and ‘parent’… well that is a biggie, to put it mildly.

The post about lesbians being better than all, which doesnr reflect the thread at all.

Re your second point nobody said otherwise

Have you really not seen the ‘lesbian superiority’ or the ‘lesbian blamelessness’ arguments being used on the thread at all?

As to the second point, it is absolutely central to the argument posed on this thread.

I know I boiled it all down in a way that may have sounded a bit flippant in my exasperation, but it’s still the bones beneath it all.

It is central but nobody disagreed

Blamelessness?what is it you would like to blame lesbians for?

I dont think same sex couples can claim any kind of superiority at all, as this thread proved they have to fight for rights handed out to opposite sex.

I’m finding your vagueness around what points you are responding to and what points you are making hard to follow. It would be much easier if you quoted to know what you meant.

”It is central but nobody disagreed”

Come on, how is anyone meant to understand that vagueness?

I imagine, reading back, that the point you claim ‘is central, but no-one disagreed’ is my saying this “divorcing the biological meaning from the words ‘mother’, ‘father’ and ‘parent’… well that is a biggie, to put it mildly.”, which doesn’t actually make any sense to say is ‘central but no one disagreed’.

This whole thread is about the ‘right’ to divorce the meanings of the words ‘parent’, ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from the biological relationship they describe. I, for one am strongly disagreeing with it.

This thread title poses this claim:

“Lesbian mothers should be on birth certificates”.

Since the only two people whose names currently must, by law, be recorded on a baby’s birth certificate, are both the baby and the mother who bore it, (the sexual orientation of the mother is not relevant), then the OP is clearly talking about someone other than the woman who bore the child being on the child’s birth certificate there.

In essence, the OP’s central argument asserts two things:

1. The word ‘mother’ describes someone other than the woman who bore the child.
2. People who are not biologically related to a child should be named on a child’s birth certificate as it’s parent(s).

These assertions from the OP divorce the words ‘mother’ and ‘parent’ from their understood biological meanings very nonchalantly, as though it’s no biggie at all.

I am saying this is a big deal and shouldn’t be lightly glossed over.

In essence, the OP’s central argument asserts two things:

• The word ‘mother’ describes someone other than the woman who bore the child.

Incorrect. The word 'mother' should and does always describe the woman who bore the child, even if that mother used an egg donor and is not biologically related to the child.

• People who are not biologically related to a child should be named on a child’s birth certificate as it’s parent(s).

Yes. And this already happens.. See the example above, when heterosexual couples use a sperm donor and yes when lesbian couples have children

These assertions from the OP divorce the words ‘mother’ and ‘parent’ from their understood biological meanings very nonchalantly, as though it’s no biggie at all.

These assertions from @TangledRoots suggest these rights should be removed from existing parents, both gay and straight, as though it's no biggie at all.

The word 'mother' should and does always describe the woman who bore the child

🤔@SapphosRock - Do you now disagree with the title of your own thread?

People who are not biologically related to a child should be named on a child’s birth certificate as it’s parent(s).

Yes.

I disagree with this. I think all people are entitled to a birth certificate which tells them the truth about who they are. Using donors impacts upon the ability of a birth certificate to document the truth, and this needs urgent consideration, tightening up, it’s overdue. It definitely doesn’t need the official assumption of biological parenthood to be completely (or even partially) scrapped. That is not in the child’s best interest at all.

“these rights should be removed from existing parents”

I only recognise the word ‘parent’ to describe biological (genetic and/or birth giving)parents, legally adoptive parents and step parents.

I believe only the first kind of parent (genetic and/or birth giving), should be documented as a baby’s parents at the registration of its birth. I don’t believe it is about the parent’s ’right’ to be on the birth certificate, it’s about the child’s right to have the truth about their identity on their birth certificate. If people other than their actual biological (genetic and/or birth-giving) parents want legal parental responsibility, then there is an adoption process and certificate for that.

I’m in favour of lesbian parents both being listed but I do think that that there should always be a place for genetic father (whether known or just sperm donor).

Late to this but I suppose this argument hinges on what a birth certificate is actually for- is it a record of your biological parenthood (both biological mother and father) or is it a record of the child, and who has parental responsibility for them at the time they are born?

Plenty of unmarried women do not register the father of their child on the certificate because they either don’t know who he is or because they don’t want him to be listed because that gives him parental rights. Plenty of women register their husband as the father of their child when that may not be the case.

So, as it’s not an accurate record of fatherhood I don’t really understand why the partner of a lesbian Mother could not be listed on the birth certificate as a second parent. It’s not creating any kind of fiction (ie that the child was magically conceived by two women with no male involvement).

Plenty of women register their husband as the father of their child when that may not be the case.

Really? Plenty?

I think this phenomenon is overstated by yourself and others, to normalise the divorce of biological meanings from the words ‘father’ and ‘parent’.

The legal assumption, is that the woman is made pregnant by the man she is married to and/or that the man who shows up to register as the child’s father, is not lying.

@TangledRoots we agree on quite a lot. I agree with you that the birth certificate is for the child not the parent. I agree that it is a record of (an aspect of) who they are. But it is not just a certificate for their genetic ancestory tracing, it is a practical document from the moment they are born to confirm whose family they are in, who has what sort of access and responsibility for them. It is in their best interests that the people who chose to bring them into the world, who wanted and planned for them, are listed there as parents whether or not biologically linked. Because those parents are of much more use to the child/infant/newborn than some sperm donor/absent father etc. I do not agree with your earlier comment that children are best raised by biologically linked adults, in fact I refute that completely. I think any research showing this will be more about problems with the social care sphere than anything about forms of parenting. It is not adequate to ask lesbian mothers and non-biological fathers (eg sperm donor) to go through adoption processes, because processes would be lengthy and depend on someone else saying they are worthy. That feels risky in an environment with rising homophobia. How is that possibly in their best interest, when they have known me since the day they were born? They deserve security given by society recognising I am there parent, unrefutably. They should be able to trace their genetics but right from the moment they are born it is in their interests to have 2 caring committed parents who want them on their b/c if possible. Not all kids get that, because not all families work like that, but why deprive them of it for the sake of putting biological relatedness on some higher level of 'truth' about who they are, linking them to people who may be uninterested in any sort of responsibility and care. Yes, putting some info about biology as well is fine, in case they want access to that info later. but talking about children, and what they need before they are adults, they need their parents at birth to be legally recognised.

“I think this phenomenon is overstated by yourself and others, to normalise the divorce of biological meanings from the words ‘father’ and ‘parent’.”

That is not what I am trying to do. However I don’t understand why the husband of a woman would be automatically included on a birth certificate of her child when the wife of a married woman would not be, if the certificate is a record of who has parental responsibility at birth and not an accurate record who contributed their genetics to the creation of the baby. Why should a woman’s wife have to formally adopt the child they planned for?