Issued 22nd June 2007
The Government propose to require mothers to name fathers on a birth certificate. Until now, mothers have been able to leave the father’s name on a birth certificate blank. This proposal has provoked a quite predictable controversy.

One detail has escaped much attention, however, if the father is a rapist, or has been violent towards the mother, then the mother will not be forced to name him. This detail reveals the fundamental flaw in the whole debate: that it focuses upon the mother instead of on the child.

The person who benefits from – and owns – a birth certificate is the child, not either of the parents, named or unnamed. To want to know the identity of your closest relatives in the world – your biological parents – is part of human nature, and there can be very few people who wish to be ignorant about the identity of their father.

The idea that anybody, even one’s mother, should be allowed for reasons of her own to prevent one from knowing who their father was, must surely infringe a child’s human right to a family life. Besides, who is to decide the list of crimes on the basis of which the mother will be allowed to conceal the father’s identity from the child? Why is it just rapists and wife-beaters whose children will not know their father? What about the children of mass-murderers, armed robbers, paedophiles, drug-dealers, drunken drivers, or terrorists? It seems odd that if a father has a conviction for slapping his wife once, then his child may never know him, but if the father has a conviction for war crimes which resulted in the deaths of thousands, then that is OK.

If the motive behind the idea is in fact merely to protect the child from harm, by hindering contact with a violent natural parent, then surely a woman who has convictions for murder or child-abuse should have her name omitted from the child’s birth certificate as well?

It is clear that allowing any person to prevent their child from knowing their ancestry, simply because one parent disapproves of the other’s behavior, is impossible to implement fairly or sensibly. Children should have a fundamental right to know who their ancestors are.

The Government needs to realise that a birth certificate is the property of the child, not of the mother.