Penny Booth: Welcome to Parenthood

The headlines (even in the ‘quality' press) say it all -‘Lesbian mother and gay father in court...' - and it's over the children. The story revolves around a gay man and a lesbian woman and her partner in what is thought to be an unprecedented court battle (the battle isn't new but the court appearance might be) over access to the children. So far it sounds fairly ‘run-of-the-mill' private law stuff except for the references to the sexuality of the adults involved. Not sure why we need that but perhaps it will become clearer...

The lesbian mother and her partner took their case to the Court of Appeal when the sperm donor via artificial insemination won a shared residence earlier this year in the High Court. The sperm donor had put a nifty advert in Gay Times offering sperm for parenthood - note to man involved: no actually real parenthood just doesn't work like that. The winning (I do dislike...

Read the full article here.