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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will allow me to give an example of why what he says is not relevant to the Bill. My sister is a lesbian, and she and her partner decided to have a child. Her partner bore the child, with the active agreement of a man friend. My sister has no rights whatever over that child. She had no legal power to become the equivalent of a father. Fortunately, it has worked well, and the child has grown up happy and contented. The effect of the existing law is to take away the equivalent of a father, and the effect of this Bill would be to give my sister rights that would be equivalent to those of a father. It works in the opposite direction from that which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is describing.