Ethics briefings

TL;DR: The case of a lesbian couple and a gay father raises questions about the definition of family and parental rights in the UK. The ruling emphasizes the child's best interests and includes the father's financial responsibility.

Abstract: Who is a parent? Many societies and legal systems have to grapple with the reality that families are increasingly complex entities. In March 2002 a Scottish sheriff sought to define the basic principles behind the notion of “family”. She ruled that a lesbian couple cannot legally constitute a family unit for the purposes of an award of parental rights and responsibilities. The case concerned the best interests of an 18-month-old boy whose mother was in a lesbian relationship and whose biological father was a gay man. The mother argued that her female partner should be awarded full parental rights since the father was simply a sperm donor for the lesbian couple who were the intended parents. He contested this and brought the case to court in order to obtain access to the child. The sheriff emphasised that the boy’s interests were paramount, ruling that he should see his father, who was named as a parent on the birth certificate and who, the court said, should also be liable for his financial support. Gay rights campaigners welcomed this support for the parental rights of homosexual fathers but expressed concern about the rights of the mother’s lesbian partner, opening up the concept of recognising multiple parents: possibly three or four. At present in the UK, mothers have parental responsibility for their children. In addition, fathers who are married to the child’s mother also have automatic parental responsibility. The government intends to change the law to give unmarried fathers, who are named on a child’s birth certificate, automatic parental responsibility. In Scotland, the parental rights of same sex couples may ultimately be decided by the Scottish parliament. This judgment contrasts with an earlier American court decision involving novel notions of parenthood. In January 2000, an English male couple were registered in the United States as the parents of twins who had no named mother. The men, registered as “parent one” and “parent two”, participated in a surrogacy arrangement with an American woman, using donor eggs and sperm from one of the men (but they refused to say which one). Although the legal parents in the USA, the men were not recognised as such in the UK. They had custody of the babies but the twins were not entitled to UK citizenship.