British MPs vote to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child's need for a father

LONDON: Fathers are passe! A family no longer needs to consist of a mother and a father, but can comprise just two mothers, two fathers or simply a single mother.

Single women and homosexual couples won landmark parental rights late last night when British MPs voted to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child's need for a father.

Granting the most significant extension of homosexual family rights since gay adoption was sanctioned, the government secured a majority in the debate over the 'need for a father'. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will now replace the rule with a "need for supportive parenting".

When made into law it will mean that fertility clinics can no longer turn away lesbian couples or single women because their children will not a have a father or male role model in their lives. While the current law does not block such therapy, it is sometimes used to justify refusals.


Member of Parliament who backed the fatherhood amendments said the traditional family would be undermined and the new law would amount to telling couples that "fathers are not important, or are less important than mothers". Ian Duncan Smith, former leader of the Conservative Party argued that there was overwhelming evidence that children without fathers were more likely to have problems at school and with drink and drugs.

It is ironic that the Labour government is endorsing the changes when they have spent the last five years fighting the rise in teenage crime, the cause of which is laid at the door of a lack father figure in the lives of the miscreants who are generally brought up by a single mother.

The law will now be brought into line with the Human Rights Act. The Bill will allow both partners to be recognised as parents when lesbian couples conceive with donated sperm or gay men use surrogacy. At present only the natural mother or father is considered to be a parent when homosexual couples have fertility treatment.

However, apart from some MPs the church also criticised the amendments. "I think it is strange that the government should want to take away not just the need for a father but the right for a father," said Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. In another landmark decision last night MPs rejected moved to prevent women having abortions up to 24 weeks into pregnancy.

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