The Italian government has begun removing nongestational mothers’ names from their children’s birth certificates, depriving the children of the protections and benefits of two legal parents.
Italy’s moves come after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government told cities not to allow the creation of Italian birth certificates that include two mothers, nor to recognize foreign birth certificates of children with two fathers. Some jurisdictions have allowed same-sex parents to adopt each others’ children since 2014, but this has not been enshrined in Italian law. Milan was the last major city in Italy to allow both same-sex parents to be put on their children’s birth certificates, but was told in March to stop.
Now, the Daily Mail reports, central government officials in Padua have gone further, and have informed 27 families with two moms, raising 33 children, that the nongestational parent is being removed from their child(ren)’s existing birth certificate(s). Michela Leidi of Bergamo told the paper, “I cried for ten days when I opened the letter. It was as if I did not exist.”
Famiglie Arcobaleno (Rainbow Families), the country’s largest organization for LGBTQ parents, explained that the children in these families “would lose inheritance rights, the full right to education and health, the stability and security of a family fully recognized by the State.” (Google translation here and below; see links for original Italian text.)
Padua’s mayor, Sergio Giordani, is defiantly still issuing new birth certificates recognizing same-sex parents, according to the Daily Mail. That will not help the families who have just been told that legal rights are being taken away from one parent, however.
One couple, Vanessa Finesso and Cristina Zambon, even had their child via reciprocal IVF (one person’s egg, carried in the other’s uterus), meaning that the parent being stripped of her rights is the child’s genetic parent. To make things worse, Finesso, the gestational mother, has cancer; if she dies, Zambon, the genetic mother, will have no rights to their child.
On June 29, they called for people to display signs with the slogan “We Are All Families” (“Siamo tutte Famiglie”) in support of the families, and said the government’s moves were “a violent and overbearing action against our children who risk being suddenly deprived of their family identity and of any legal protection by the intentional parent.”
They said in another statement that the Meloni government’s actions were “removing a legal parent from minors even 6 years after birth: a shameful act unworthy of a civilized country.”
Indeed. And if you think it can’t happen in the United States, think again. (See “LGBTQ Paths to Parentage Security,” at lgbtqparentage.org, for a guide that GLAD and I developed to help you understand your options for protecting your family.)
(Note to my fellow journalists: I use “gestational/nongestational” above rather than “biological/nonbiological,” because in the case of RIVF, I would argue that both parents are “biological” parents. I encourage you to use similar terminology.)