At the moment female same-sex couples have two different ways they can register their children?
Female civil partners
Either woman can register the birth on her own if all of the following are true:
- the mother has a child by donor insemination or fertility treatment
- she was in a civil partnership at the time of the treatment
- her civil partner is the child’s legal parent
Female non-civil partners
When a mother isn’t in a civil partnership, her partner can be seen as the child’s second parent if both women: are treated together in the UK by a licensed clinic have made a ‘parenthood agreement’
However, for both parents’ details to be recorded on the birth certificate, they must do one of the following:
- register the birth jointly
- complete a ‘Statutory declaration of acknowledgement of parentage’ form and one parent takes the signed form when she registers the birth
- get a document from the court (for example, a court order) giving the second female parent parental responsibility and one parent shows the document when she registers the birth
The bill only mentions:
Common law presumption
(1)Section 11 does not extend the common law presumption that a child born 5to a woman during her marriage is also the child of her husband.
(2)Accordingly, where a child is born to a woman during her marriage to another woman, that presumption is of no relevance to the question of who the child’s parents are.Which doesn't really answer whether married female same-sex couples will be treated the way civil partners are now. Any ideas oh knowledgeable ones?
