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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

It may well be the case—I certainly hope that it is—that before deciding to have children, people will appreciate that those children must be brought up in loving households. In my experience, based on the lesbian mothers whom I know, before they make the very serious decision to have children in what is not, in all circumstances, the most liberal of worlds, they look to the welfare of the child and to how they can best bring that child up. They do not need a doctor who is not trained in and has no particular experience of these matters to give them counselling on what sort of father figure they should seek, how long that father figure should be involved in their lives, and exactly what ““father figure”” means in what circumstances. It is not for a doctor to make that sort of decision. We should trust the good sense of parents—of women—who do not need to be patronised by anyone, or told how they should bring up children. Motherhood is a serious matter, as is fatherhood, and we should allow parents to make serious decisions themselves.