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A legislation change which will legally allow a child to have two mothers and no father when parents undergo fertility treatment removes an “absurdity” in the present law, a family law expert claims.
Following a vote in the Commons, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will update previous legislation to remove the reference to a father.
Margaret Hatwood, an associate at Thomas Eggar, says: “Where two women are in a relationship and one has fertility treatment to conceive then the partner should be treated as the other ‘parent’ even when the couple are not in a civil partnership. In those cases no man can be treated as a father to avoid a child having three legal parents which would be an absurdity.”
She says it will be interesting to see whether once this Act is in force, it will give non-biological parent more rights.
“In Re G, heard on 26 July 2006 by the House of Lords, a residence dispute involving two lesbian mothers was ultimately resolved with the dispute being resolved in favour of the biological mother. Although a shared residence order was made it gave the biological mother more time with the children. The House of Lords gave priority to the biological mother’s claims even though the mother’s former partner was a psychological parent,” she says. “It would be fascinating to see if this case would be looked at differently when the new Act is in force.”
