The northern Italian city of Padua has started removing the names of non-biological gay mothers from their children’s birth certificates under new legislation passed by the traditional family-first government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. These birth certificates belong to 33 children of Italian women who underwent artificial insemination abroad and then registered their children under the city’s center-left government, led by Sergio Giordani, in 2017. The prosecutor’s office in Padua confirmed to CNN that, as of Thursday last week, 27 mothers had been removed from 27 birth certificates. Giordani came to power promising to remove the traditional mother and father designations on birth certificates, but this was overturned when Meloni’s government ordered local authorities to stop registering the children of same-sex parents with both of their names. The measure means that only the biological parent of a child can be named on a birth certificate. Surrogacy is illegal in Italy, and gay marriage has not been legalized. Because same-sex relationships aren’t recognized in law, the non-biological parent has to make a special case for legally adopting their child. The measure also stops men in a same-sex relationship from registering the birth of their child with both fathers’ names. Instead, they have to choose one to be the legal father.
