The Role of the father has been downgraded

Legislation has effectively dismissed the contribution of half the population to the upbringing of the next generation, says Ruth Deech, the chairman of the Bar Standards Board.
Over the last half a century there has been a sea change in society’s attitude towards same-sex relationships, marriage and the family. Homosexuality has moved from criminal status to legalisation, from legalisation to acceptance and the same respectfulness as heterosexual relationships. We have now reached the stage where, in the event of an election victory, the Conservative leader has promised that civil partners will benefit from extended paternity and maternity leave (in the case of adoption or artificial insemination babies). David Cameron has also promised that proposals to extend flexible working and married couples’ tax breaks would be granted as well. He has stated that the party is no longer hostile to same sex couples.

While changes to the law which have given homosexual couples the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual couples are welcome, there are two issues involving modern society’s attitude towards children which give me unease.

One is the new possibility of birth certificates for children born to couples of the same sex, which name two persons of the same sex as their parents. This is logical following on the extension of rights to same sex couples, but there is an issue of principle here, which is the truth. Sections of the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (HFEA) even allow a dead woman, never known to the baby and not related, to be named with her previous consent on the birth certificate by the choice of the birth mother, while preventing the child from having a father. Birth registration is about genetic inheritance (albeit that sometimes the truth is not told) and about the welfare of the child, not about the relationship, legal or otherwise, between the adults whose will gave rise to it. The birth certificate that names two female parents will disclose to anyone perusing it that the child was necessarily born from donor sperm or a donor embryo or a surrogate mother. It could even result in deception to exclude the natural father where the mother conceived naturally but uses this provision to cut him out of the child’s life.
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