Lesbian mothers are left feeling helpless. "After opening the letter, I cried for two days," Michela (38) from Bergamo told the Daily Mail. The letter stated that she, as the non-biological mother, would be removed from their child's birth certificate. The couple had conceived their child through an IVF treatment in Spain.
With this measure, Michela loses all her rights, including school choice, hospital visits, and decision-making authority over the child in case her partner passes away.
The fact that Michela was initially included on the birth certificate was due to a legal loophole. The law does not specify whether it is allowed or not. Therefore, the progressive mayor of Bergamo was able to sign the birth certificate.
The conservative-right government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni now wants to put an end to such practices. Government officials have been instructed to identify birth certificates with two mothers and declare them invalid. This also happened to the lesbian couple Vanessa and Cristina from Padua. They told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that they are "living a nightmare." Their child, Vittoria, was conceived using Cristina's DNA but carried by Vanessa. Cristina is now being removed from the birth certificate.
The two are concerned about the future of their child. Vanessa recently had a tumour, so she is uncertain about her life. "If something happens to me, what will happen to Vittoria? Yesterday, our daughter had two mothers, and now Cristina, my wife, suddenly has no connection to her simply because she didn't give birth. I can't believe that the prosecutors in Padua are doing this to us."
While left-wing politicians criticise Meloni's policies, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for LGBTQ+ couples. The government is firmly in power, and Meloni continues to perform well in the polls with her conservative rhetoric. Her focus is on the family unit consisting of one man and one woman. She and her party strongly oppose IVF treatments and surrogacy, which they label as "surrogate propaganda." They argue that children would be unhappy with two same-sex parents, without providing any scientific evidence to support their claims.
