Who's Your Daddy? No, Really...
Gay parenting rights just keep moving ahead in leaps and bounds in the UK. The House Of Commons has been debating significant changes to the human embryology laws of late. Last night they officially voted on whether to drop the need for a father as a pre-requisite to accessing IVF treatment.
The decision wasn’t made lightly, with hours of heated debate taking place. In the end it all came down to 292 votes against 217. The IVF child’s right to a father took a backseat to making sure that lesbians and single mothers were not discriminated against. Instead of a father figure, the government wants fertility clinics to consider the notion of ‘supportive parenting’.
According to Scotsman.com, Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader and ‘pro-father’ advocate told MP’s: “Taking [the right to a father] away… will be as though we are saying to those couples, particularly in the heterosexual world, that this is not an issue, that fathers are not important.” He says that to call the need for a father discriminatory is “utter nonsense”.
He says that fatherless children grow up disadvantaged in all sorts of ways – they’re more likely to suffer at school, they’re more likely to have substance abuse problems.
Of course, ‘supportive parenting’ does address these issues. A lesbian couple or a well supported single mother is not the same environment as a broken home. Other MPs said that there were other options for father figures in children’s lives – friends, a male relative or a grandfather.
Now comes the next part of the debate – whether to cut the upper limit on abortions. Both pro-lifers and pro-choice have been protesting outside Parliament and the pro-lifers have also handed in a 60,000 signature strong petition to Downing Street, asking for access to abortions to be reduced from 24 weeks into the pregnancy, to 20 weeks.
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peterr3445w
said ages ago