Resources
Legal parenthood
A child can only ever have two legal parents under English law (although additional adults can acquire legal status or rights for a child, e.g. parental responsibility or a child arrangements order).
Legal parenthood for a child denotes:
- Inheritance rights – giving your child an automatic right of inheritance from you
- Financial responsibility for a child
- Citizenship and nationality – enabling the conferral of British citizenship upon a child (except in certain prescribed situations)
Legal parenthood creates a lifelong legal connection with a child. Legal parenthood is different from parental responsibility and it is possible to hold one without the other or both in law.
Legal parenthood can become a complex legal issue for alternative structure families and families created through assisted conception, as law in the UK can override biology:
- A solo mother conceiving with a known donor may not have sole legal parenthood for her child (and could vest unwanted legal status in her known donor)
- A surrogate mother and her husband will be a surrogate baby’s legal parents at birth to the exclusion of the intended parents (pending the grant of a parental order)
- A non birth lesbian mother may or may not have legal parenthood for her and her partner’s child
- A biological co-parent may or may not have legal parenthood for their child
Media & Commentary
“Netflix’s Our Father: DNA testing, paternity disputes and questions about biological and legal parentage”, (Louisa Ghevaert Associates blog, 16 May 2022).
“International surrogacy law: existing conflicts unresolved” (BioNews, comment piece by Louisa Ghevaert, 14 March 2022).
“Declaration of Parentage: resolving family ancestry, questions about parentage and birth certificates”, Louisa Ghevaert Associates blog (30 November 2021).
Apple podcast with Speak From The Body with Avni Touch entitled “Fertility law for modern families with Louisa Ghevaert” (26 February 2020).
“Legal parentage disputes: modern families and the law”, Louisa Ghevaert Associates blog (18 November 2020).
“The global legal identity gap”, Louisa Ghevaert Associates blog (21 August 2020).
Anything but child’s play: surrogacy and thorny issues of identity, parenthood and status in modern families (Family Law, 29 August 2018)
Birth certificates: a new era? (BioNews, April 2010)
How can we help?
We can provide expert, supportive and accessible legal assistance to include:
- Advice on acquisition of legal parenthood for a child in the UK, which is especially important if you are undergoing assisted conception and you have complex personal circumstances or want to conceive with a known donor
- Advice on acquisition of legal parenthood for a child in the UK, which is especially important if you are undergoing assisted conception and you have complex personal circumstances or want to conceive with a known donor
- Advice and preparation of a donor agreement (to clarify the legal position of you and your known donor)
- Advice and preparation of a co-parenting agreement (to clarify the legal position of you and your co-parent/s)
- Advice and representation for you in a parental order application following surrogacy (to confer legal parenthood on intended parents and extinguish the legal status of surrogate parents)
- Advice and representation for you in a private adoption application (e.g. if you are a step-parent or a non birth lesbian mother)
- Advice and representation for you if there is a dispute surrounding the legal parentage or parental responsibility of your child
- Resolving a dispute about legal parentage following a direct-to-consumer DNA test (e.g. to remove or add a parent’s name to a birth certificate)
- Resolving a dispute about legal parentage following a foreign adoption
- Resolving problems with completion of patient HFEA consent forms at UK fertility clinics (e.g. missing or errors), calling into question the legal parentage of a non-birth parent for their child.
