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.

Tangled - people who donate gametes or use donated gametes are under no illusion of the potential consequences of that process. They are required to undergo counselling which explores their understanding and the law, the impact on the child, the child’s rights, and the importance of being honest with the child are all discussed in depth.

Also, experimentation on embryos? Are you meaning things like 3 parent embryos as a treatment for mitochondrial diseases? This is an absolutely life changing medical advancement that prevents hideous suffering for these children.

Also, to reiterate, children with two mothers (one birth mother and one non-gestational mother) are absolutely not any worse off than children of heterosexual parents. To call these families a facsimile of “natural” is not just wrong it’s horrendously offensive.

They are required to undergo counselling which explores their understanding and the law, the impact on the child, the child’s rights, and the importance of being honest with the child are all discussed in depth.

I really hope this is true and that practises like offering women a free round of IVF in exchange for donating their eggs have stopped. Also, I wonder, is this really true of all gamete harvesters/banks, in all countries? I am sceptical.

Also, experimentation on embryos? Are you meaning things like 3 parent embryos

Yes. Amongst other things.

To call these families a facsimile of “natural” is not just wrong it’s horrendously offensive.

In that post I chose wording wide enough to include everyone from a man who insists he is a ‘real’ woman, right through to Kim Kardashian avoiding pregnancy by using a surrogate mother. By facsimile of natural, I mean a situation requiring medical intervention, infrastructure which, for example in the case of family creation, unnaturally allows biological parents to procreate without ever meeting eachother and perhaps never even finding out who one-another are, a situation requiring lots falsehoods and taboos to make it seem that this is ‘no different at all’ to the simple and natural one. If there is no claim of it being “exactly the same”, “no different”, or “equal in every way”, and instead there is an openness, being frank about how it isn’t identical - in fact it is complicated and throws up its own issues and hurdles, but it is what it is - then that is not a facsimile. It is honest and truthful about it being different.

I mean we can’t make laws in the UK that also change laws in all other countries? That’s like when Trump decided to build a wall between Mexico and America and said Mexico would pay for it.

We are discussing whether the UK requires a change to the existing birth certificate laws, so it’s pretty relevant what the UK currently does around this situation. You’re arguing that something should happen that already does and then saying “oh well it might not happen in other countries”.

Also, your argument that the birth certificate has always been about genetics is flawed. Lesbians didn’t just start rocking up at registry offices in 2009 and start listening themselves on birth certificates. The government changed the law to allow it, meaning they understood the purpose of a birth certificate is also to bestow parental responsibility to legal parents.

I mean a situation requiring medical intervention, infrastructure which, for example in the case of family creation, unnaturally allows biological parents to procreate without ever meeting eachother and perhaps never even finding out who one-another are, a situation requiring lots falsehoods and taboos

Aside from the fact that this is again starting with the implicit assumption that a heterosexual nuclear family is the best way to raise a child, fertility treatment is not filled with “falsehoods.” The treatment had and the donor, if used, are documented. No one is pretending it didn’t happen (except, of course, some straight couples).

we all know what a taboo is, but to make it really clear I’ll put the definition here:

a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.

Fertility treatment is not, in any way, taboo. Most families who use it are open about having used it, and don’t experience social exclusion or derision. Its silly to pretend that fertility treatment is looked on this way by society when it’s not. It’s inflammatory but delusional statements like this that make your arguments appear to be the product of a conservative, traditional, patriarcal tradition rather than one of exclusively concern for children.

to make it seem that this is ‘no different at all’ to the simple and natural one. If there is no claim of it being “exactly the same”, “no different”, or “equal in every way”, and instead there is an openness, being frank about how it isn’t identical -

This is pure projection. It’s what you want to think these families are saying. I doubt you’ve hung out with a lesbian family in person. Families must be firm about our equal right to be a family because of people like you. Lesbian families are equally as good at being families, and deserve equal legal standing, but I don’t know any they claim they are “exactly the same” and “no different” from a straight family. If we wanted to be exactly the same, we wouldn’t be lesbians 😂

In that post I chose wording wide enough to include everyone from a man who insists he is a ‘real’ woman, right through to Kim Kardashian avoiding pregnancy by using a surrogate mother.

Neither of these things affect lesbian families. The first, because lesbian families doesn’t include men, and the second, because they don’t use surrogates. You regularly conflate all the issues, which muddles, rather than adds clarity, to your aims. The fast the people cannot change sex, the use of surrogates, and gamete donation are three completely separate issues and should be regulated as such.

the birth certificate has always been about genetics is flawed. Lesbians didn’t just start rocking up at registry offices in 2009 and start listening themselves on birth certificates. The government changed the law to allow it, meaning they understood

I don’t know exactly how the law was changed, but the GRA was brought in changing the legal record on of biological reality, in 2004, not because of a change in ‘understanding’ of what the record was for in the UK, but because of strong arm tactics of activists using strategic litigation, discrimination arguments and winning in the ECHR first. This change in law was likely to be the same.

Aside from the fact that this is again starting with the implicit assumption that a heterosexual nuclear family is the best way to raise a child, fertility treatment is not filled with “falsehoods.” The treatment had and the donor, if used, are documented.

Firstly, I was speaking about donor conceptions using clinics, sexual orientation is irrelevant.

The kind of falsehoods I am talking about are ones like a when woman and a man she has never met are making a baby together, helped by a clinic who chose them as a procreating couple. The falsehood is when the woman and her current partner say “we’re having a baby together” to help them feel less weird about what is being done. Or say “the word parent is nothing to do with biology because we are both equally the baby’s parents” or “the gamete is just one, tiny, irrelevant cell, providing one isn’t enough to qualify as a child’s parent”, or “the meanings of the word ‘mother’ and ‘parent’ are verbs, not nouns and that’s what they have always been in law”, etc. The kind of taboos I am talking about, are the ones like- exclusively referring to biological/genetic parents as ‘donors’ and saying it is offensive to refer to them as ‘fathers’, ‘mothers’ or ‘parents’ genetically - those kind of taboos where people feel they need to tread on eggshells around the people demanding that kind of language.

It’s what you want to think these families are saying.

It’s what activists say. “I am a real woman”, “TWAW”, “a unrelated woman is just as much a real mother as the woman who gave birth”, “two men who pay for a baby are equally good as parents for a child as it being raised by its mother” …These declarations often come with overt accusations or insinuations that a person with any qualms about it is transphobic, homophobic or sexist.

Neither of these things affect lesbian families. The first, because lesbian families doesn’t include men, and the second, because they don’t use surrogates. You regularly conflate all the issues, which muddles, rather than adds clarity, to your aims.

I do not see lesbian couples as some kind of special case with unique intrinsic rights to disparage the importance of biology, genealogy, or the unique relationship of biological birth-giving mothers to their child, or the truth, and so on.
When lesbians disparage these things with a view to getting what they want or convincing others to go along with it, I see them no differently to other transhumanist activists with similar aims and identical methods. For that reason, all people with ‘progressive’ aims to make biology and nature subject to equality and discrimination arguments and who demand technological interventions and linguistic changes of meanings to support it, can be discussed in the same breath since they are part of the same thing.

I have been thinking about this shift that keeps happening.

“a heterosexual nuclear family is the best way to raise a child”

I am typically focussing on how children/people are created - the biological and genetic arguments about how this affects the long term psychological welfare of the child and even the impact of any interventions upon any descendants they might have, and then this discussion gets shunted into a discussion about parenting techniques.

I would say, without question, that the best way to create a child, is where two people together, without involvement, intervention or interference of anyone else, make one, and who intend to stick around and look after that child and look out for it, and any descendants, for as long as they live. They will go on to say “look it has your eyes”, “your feet”, “your fascination with insects”, “your sensitive skin”, etc, and this biological relationship deepens the bond and informs parenting, helping with understanding that thing the baby is trying to express before it knows words, etc, because you too, felt that same thing as a child.

The thing is, the only kinds of couples who can enjoy this simple experience of creating a baby together, all by themselves, are couples involving a man a woman, and within these couples, only the woman can grow the baby in her womb, give birth to and breastfeed it. Nature and biology is sexist, homophobic, transphobic and mean to infertile people.

Raising children is a whole other field of discussion.

The kind of taboos I am talking about, are the ones like- exclusively referring to biological/genetic parents as ‘donors’ and saying it is offensive to refer to them as ‘fathers’, ‘mothers’ or ‘parents’ genetically - those kind of taboos where people feel they need to tread on eggshells around the people demanding that kind of language.

You have a gross misunderstanding of why people use this language. People don’t use this language because of a social taboo, they use this language because because it most accurately reflects the relationship each person has with the child.

You personally find it taboo, but most people don’t. Your narrow view of what makes a parent is not reflected in wider society, as much as you wish it was. This doesn’t just apply to families who use gamete donation, but all non traditional heterosexual nuclear families. I get the feeling you have very little expose to families that have non nuclear structures even without gamete donation.

I have a friend who is the adult donor conceived child of a lesbian couple. She had a known donor and grew up with him being called her “donor dad.” I asked her her thoughts about how to talk to my kids, and she explicitly said that she wished her moms had just called him a donor. He wasn’t a dad, because that implies the active parenting relationship. She doesn’t feel like she missed out on this, but says that using that terminology was more confusing for her as a child.

It’s what activists say. “I am a real woman”, “TWAW”, “a unrelated woman is just as much a real mother as the woman who gave birth”, “two men who pay for a baby are equally good as parents for a child as it being raised by its mother” …These declarations often come with overt accusations or insinuations that a person with any qualms about it is transphobic, homophobic or sexist.

As long as you continue to make muddled, fear-mongering statements like this you will continue to do the opposite of what you wish in terms of child safeguarding.

Transgenderism, Parental responsibility, regulation of gamete donation and surrogacy are all separate issues. Even in documentation and legislation, they all require separate regulation. The fact that you can’t separate them in your mind means you will never create a coherent argument. Lesbians are not saying they are special, they are just stating the fact that they are not affected by surrogacy regulation or gender reassignment laws and provisions, which you keep bringing into a thread about the birth certificates of lesbian’s children.

’s children

What is the definition of someone’s child?

It is biological, step, adoptive, ‘in law’……. But lesbians have a new definition of de facto parents. It is fuzzy and unclear as to how this biologically unrelated, non-adoptive parent can claim categorically that they are the child’s parents.

This fuzzy fudging of law and language from its intended meanings, the divorce from biology, odd use of equality and discrimination arguments around natural, biological phenomena, are all part of the ‘progressive’ tanker which is setting a course for an unpleasant future.

The information and meaning of language on people’s identity documents, like birth certificates, are a major battleground. That’s why it is part of this thread.

Regardless of why you believe this, you have unequivocally demonstrated that this summary I provided earlier of your view is accurate:

You hold a conservative, traditional (and rather patriarcal) view of the nuclear family, believe that children get their primary identity from their genetic mother and father, and should be raised by only these two people if possible, and the birth certificate should reflect this by always listing a man and a woman.

“I would say, without question, that the best way to create a child, is where two people together, without involvement, intervention or interference of anyone else, make one, and who intend to stick around and look after that child and look out for it, and any descendants, for as long as they live. They will go on to say “look it has your eyes”, “your feet”, “your fascination with insects”, “your sensitive skin”, etc, and this biological relationship deepens the bond and informs parenting, helping with understanding that thing the baby is trying to express before it knows words, etc, because you too, felt that same thing as a child.

The thing is, the only kinds of couples who can enjoy this simple experience of creating a baby together, all by themselves, are couples involving a man a woman, and within these couples, only the woman can grow the baby in her womb, give birth to and breastfeed it.”

You again again show your narrow view of child rearing and family that is pretty much exclusively a modern, western, and particularly Western European development when it comes to how children are typically nurtured. Now, you might say, but we are talking about the U.K., which is Western Europe! True, but you’re the one that keeps insinuating that there is a natural law that gives only the genetic parents rights and the registrar is simply recording this.

If you look at anthropological reports of cultures across the world, you generally find that this idea that one and and woman created the child and are therefore solely responsible for it is the aberration, not the norm, throughout human history. Humans reproductive sexually and for this you need a man and a women, whether the gametes are combined by coitus or IVF doesn’t change that fact. But neither does that fact mean that an insular, heterosexual couple is the best way to raise a child.

It’s not a new definition at all though, it’s the same one that has been used for all birth certificates.

The birth mother’s legal partner is the other de facto parent, regardless of genetic relationship. This applies to heterosexual and homosexual couples.

You miss the point again.

I am talking about ‘creating’ a child. You keep talking about ‘raising’ a child.

I want to discuss the integral nature of biology and parenthood. You want to separate out biological nature from parenthood.

I talk about two people creating a baby together - with no one else required - (okay I will go there - no one else needing to stick needles in ovaries, wank into a flask, interview prospective ‘donors’ and extract their gametes, fertilise eggs on a Petri dish, implant embryos, run a gamete bank, run a clinic, etc. For these two people to create their baby, they do it all by themselves, in the privacy of their own bed). You take this to mean I am talking about a family where Gran’ma and ‘aunt Sue’ are denied a significant role. No. I am talking about creation, not raising.

It’s a circular definition.

Q1. Who has the parental rights and responsibilities of the child?

A1. The person named on the birth certificate as the child’s parent.

Q2. Who should be named as the child’s parent on their birth certificate?

A2. The one with parental rights and responsibilities.

There has to be some real world qualification, some provable or disprovable claim to parenthood beyond this, for the sake of the child.

To claim that, prior to lesbians changing the meanings of words in 2009, that there was never any biological qualification, or legal adoption qualification, required to be called parent, is just false. The claim is flimsy because it is based on an a discrimination argument- if heterosexuals are unofficially allowed to falsify and deceive about their biological relationship to the child, then lesbians should be officially allowed to claim legal parenthood without any requirement of biological relationship or any other stipulations.

Again and again, disagreeing with a point is not missing it.

You think that the physical act of coitus and the the fertilisation of the egg by a man in a women through this is what connects biology to parenthood.

I completely disagree, fertilisation happens during straight sex whether or not a couple has any intention of creating a child. The creation of the child is usually the unintended consequence of sex, not the purpose. Yes, I know that many straight couples time intercourse to ovulation intentionally when trying to conceive, but the vast majority of human sex is not had for the purposes of procreation, so it’s silly to argue that the act of physical sex (creating the child, as you put it) is what connects biology to parenthood.

I think the only thing that connects biology to parenthood is the physical creation of a child in a woman’s body. The physical act of choosing to carry a baby to term. The biological process of building a baby cell by cell is the only biological act that connects biology to parenthood.

Not who the father is, or how the sperm got there. And even gestation is only one piece of parenthood. After this, parenthood is created by care and nurturing of the child.

This is evidenced by the fact that fathers often easily abandoned their children, and mothers do too, although much less frequently. It’s also evidenced by the fact that bonding and attachment are not genetically dependent on either the mother or father, but is dependent on gestation. This view is also informed by my time working in child protection and witnessing firsthand not only how little the biological connection means to many people who are biologically related, but also by the number of happy, functional non traditional families I have witnessed.

I’m not saying this as a lesbian, and I have nothing against men as parents. I think that male influence in a child’s life is unique, and after a man has chosen to parent, a biological connection certainly can strengthen that bond in the ways you stated. But men have not invested in creating the child until after its birth.

I don’t miss your point, I disagree with which part of biology confers parenthood, and how much it confers.

You have still missed my point and position, but I cba to go into it line by line, however:

I think the only thing that connects biology to parenthood is the physical creation of a child in a woman’s body. The physical act of choosing to carry a baby to term. The biological process of building a baby cell by cell is the only biological act that connects biology to parenthood.

I find this gob-smacking, that you completely miss out the sperm uniting with the egg, (which actually defines conception and begins the biological process where the DNA of two people integrates and the cells begin dividing, to create a new person), from your biological process of making a baby.

At this point, we can safely agree to disagree. With this glaring omission, I don’t think we can find any common ground. Although I am sort of curious about it. Is it common to think that the gametes uniting isn’t a significant part of the biological process of creating a baby, or is it a pretty niche view?

It’s a bit like immaculate conception.

…heterosexuals are unofficially allowed to falsify and deceive about their biological relationship to the child,

this is a lie, heterosexuals can legally use sperm donation and are officially, not unofficially, are allowed to “falsify” the birth certificate, and do so at a rate of 23 to 1 for lesbians. They are not hoodwinking the system, it’s by design.

…then lesbians should be officially allowed to claim legal parenthood without any requirement of biological relationship or any other stipulations.

There is not any regulation that the birth mothers partner be genetically related to the child and there never has been. There has only been an unofficial assumption.

again, you’re in your fantasy land where the birth certificate is a genetic document. This is the reality you want, not the one that exists.

no, i’d say that it’s pretty mainstream. The idea that life begins at conception, and at the moment of fertilisation, seems like an anti-abortion (Catholic, for example) view to me.

it’s by design

No it’s not. The system was designed before donor gametes was a thing. The system was never adapted to accommodate donor gametes after they became a thing.

I find this astonishing, but I accept that it is a common enough belief for it to seem mainstream to you.

But the point is a birth certificate is meant to be a factual document of mother (person who gave birth to the baby. and father person who supplied sperm presumably. But thats now a grey area.

If you asked people if human life begins at the moment of fertilisation, what do you think they’d say? Because that is what your position has boiled down to.

most people I know believe in a woman’s right to choose.

I did start a serious reply to this one, then deleted it.

I wasn’t being inflammatory, it’s the logical extension of your argument. You have repeatedly insisted that the creation of the child is the important part, stated that donors, just by virtue of donating gametes, become parents. If fertilisation is central to parenthood rather than incidental, then Parenthood begins at fertilisation, and that is not compatible with a pro-choice view, and supports an anti-abortion view.

which if that’s what you believe, at least those views are logically consistent and we can call it a day, because we will never agree.

I think you know you are being disingenuous and are just trying to save face over an oversight on your part.

The abortion argument doesn’t rest on how ‘alive’ or how ‘human’ you think an embryo or foetus is at any point, it rests on whether you believe that the woman’s right to bodily autonomy is more important than the embryo/foetus’ ongoing existence and development.