Female couples can celebrate equal rights as amendments to the way births are registered will come into force this month.<\/p>\n
Female civil partners receiving fertility treatment will now get the same rights as heterosexual married couples when it comes to registering the birth of their child conceived through fertility treatment.<\/p>\n
Female couples not in a civil partnership but receiving fertility treatment may also be registered as parents in the same way as unmarried heterosexual couples.<\/p>\n
From Tuesday 1 September 2009, the Registration of Births and Deaths Regulations 1987 will be changed to allow this.<\/p>\n
Before this change, the mother’s female partner could not be registered as a parent.<\/p>\n
The changes come following new parenthood provisions contained in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.<\/p>\n
The new regulations will only apply to female couples who have received fertility treatment on or after April 6 2009.<\/p>\n
Stonewall’s Head of Policy and Research Ruth Hunt said:”It is vital that we afford equality wherever we can in society, especially as family circumstances continue to change. This is an important step forward in that process.”<\/p>\n
“Now lesbian couples in the UK who make a considered decision to start a loving family will finally be afforded equal access to services they help fund as taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Female couples can celebrate equal rights as amendments to the way births are registered will come into force this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol-news"],"yoast_head":"\n