¹ There was much reportage in the press. See for example, The Guardian 22 December 2011.

² For discussion of such issues see, for example, J.R. Spencer and A. Du Bois-Pedain (eds.), Freedom and Responsibility in Reproductive Choice (Oxford 2006); F. Ebtehaj et al (eds.) Kinship Matters (Oxford 2006); A. Bainham, “Arguments About Parentage” [2008] C.L.J. 322.

³ On this, see, for example, Council of Europe, Commissioner for Human Rights Adoption and Children: A Human Rights Perspective, CommDH/Issue Paper (2011) 2 28 April 2011; European Commission, Joint Council of Europe and European Commission Conference: Challenges in Adoption Procedures in Europe: Ensuring the best interests of the child, 30 Nov–1 Dec 2009 Strasbourg.

⁴ See Swinton Thomas L.J. in Re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam. 239; Webster and Webster v Norfolk County Council [2009] EWCA Civ 59.

⁵ The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights, as amended) Article 8 provides: “1. everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” This has been judicially interpreted by the ECtHR to provide a right to autonomy, identity and integrity. See, for example, Pretty v U.K.(2002) 35 E.H.R.R. at [61]; Tysiac v Poland (Application no. 5410/03), Judgment 20 March 2007 at [107]; Glass v U.K. (Application no. 61827/00); Sentges v The Netherlands (Application no. 27677/02), Judgment 8 July 2003; Penticova v Moldova (Application no. 14462/03); Nitecki v Poland (Application no. 65653/01), Judgment 21 March 2002; Odièvre v France (Application no. 42326/98), (2004) 38 E.H.R.R. 43; Niemietz v Germany (1992) 16 E.H.R.R. 97; Botta v Italy (1996) 26 E.H.R.R. 241; Bensaid v U.K. (2001) 33 E.H.R.R. 10. See J. Marshall, Personal Freedom through Human Rights Law? Autonomy, Identity and Integrity under the European Convention on Human Rights (Leiden 2009).

⁶ Research in the UK, published in October 2008 showed that for Asian babies relinquished, the concept of family honour “izzat” played a significant part in this decision. The authors analyse this in a comparable way to case histories from the 1960s: a young single mother with a child born out of wedlock which brings shame on the family. For some Asian mothers, however, it was noted that the mothers expressed fear for their lives. J. Selwyn, P. Harris et al “Pathways to Permanence for Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Children: Dilemmas, Decision-making and Outcomes”, Department for Children, Schools and Families, October 2008 DCSF-RBX-13-08 Research Brief. With thanks to Julie Selwyn.

⁷ For specific examples of this, consider children born as a result of rapes during conflict: the children are given various group names like, in the Rwandan conflict, enfants mauvais souvenir, or children of bad memories. See Weitsman, P.A., “The Politics of Identity and Sexual Violence: A Review of Bosnia and Rwanda” 30 (2008) Human Rights Quarterly 561–578CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 567.

⁸ The record low numbers of adoption in England and Wales have led some to describe the situation as an adoption crisis. See www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/sep/29/adoption-statistics-england. In 2006, 197 babies under the age of one year were recorded in the Adopted Children's Register as having been adopted: www.statistics.gov.uk. The Department for Children, Schools and Families: National Statistics 20 September 2007 states that the number of children looked after who were under one year old at adoption decreased from 220 in 2003 to 150 in 2007. The average duration of the period of care that children looked after had before being adopted in 2007 was 2 years and 8 months: a figure said to have changed little over the past 5 years. This article does not deal with the issue of abandoned babies, left by a birth giver without notifying the authorities, as to which see K. O'Donovan, “Enfants Trouvés, Anonymous Mothers and Children's Identity Rights” in K. O'Donovan and G. Rubin (eds), Human Rights and Legal History (Oxford 2000) O'Donovan, K., “ ‘Real’ Mothers for abandoned children” (2002) 36 Law and Society Review 247CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sherr, L., Mueller, J. and Fox, Z., “Abandoned babies in U.K. – a review utilizing media reports” (2009) 35 Child: care, health and development 419Google Scholar.

⁹ Article 2 provides: “1. Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law … ”

¹⁰ K. O'Donovan and J. Marshall. “After Birth: Decisions about Becoming a Mother” in A. Diduck and K. O'Donovan (eds.), Feminist Perspectives on Family Law (London 2006), 101. For the purposes of this article, the word “mother” is used to denote the woman who has given birth, in line with the current legal position.

¹¹ See the Welfare Reform Act 2009 Part 4. This provides for the naming of the unmarried biological father. Schedule 6 of the 2009 Act at 2B explains that the mother will not be required to provide information if she makes a declaration to the Registrar that one of a list of conditions exist. These include if she does not know the father's identity, if she does not know his whereabouts, if she has reason to fear for her safety or that of the child if the father is contacted. For an analysis of the problematic nature of these changes see Sheldon, S., “From ‘absent objects of blame’ to ‘fathers who want to take responsibility’: reforming birth registration law” (2009) 31 Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 373CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wallbank, J., “ ‘Bodies in the Shadows’: joint birth registration, parental responsibility and social class” (2009) 21 Child and Family Law Quarterly 267Google Scholar; C. Smart, “Family Secrets: law and understandings of openness in everyday relationships” (2009) Journal of Social Policy 551; Smart, C., “Law and the Regulation of Family Secrets” (2010) 24 International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 397CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, s. 33.

¹³ The government website www.everychildmatters.gov.uk lists in excess of 30 pieces of legislation as relevant to adoption in England and Wales.

¹⁴ The organisation CAFCASS puts a rough estimate on adoption timeline between 6 to 12 months. http://www.cafcass.gov.uk/cafcass_and_you/info_for_families/adoption_questions_answered.aspx accessed 30 July 2011.

¹⁵ The Adoption and Children Act 2002 provides for adults who were adopted before 30 December 2005 to apply to the Register General for a copy of their original birth certificate with additional provisions to enable the adopted adult to have access to birth records and information to trace birth relatives.

¹⁶ Re KD (A Minor) (Access Principles) [1988] 2 F.L.R. 139 per Lord Templeman at 141: “the best person to bring up a child is the natural parent. It matters not whether the parent is wise or foolish, rich or poor, educated or illiterate … provided the child's moral and physical health are not endangered.”

¹⁷ It is extremely difficult to overturn an adoption order as was recently demonstrated in the Court of Appeal case of Webster and Webster cited at note 4 above.

¹⁸ Adoption and Children Act 2002 s. 1(4).

¹⁹ S. Ruddick, Maternal Thinking (New York 1989); S.J. Douglas and M.W. Michaels, The Mommy Myth: the Idealization of Motherhood and How it has Undetermined Women (New York 2004).

²⁰ See, for example, A. Rich, Of Woman Born (London 1976).

²¹ See, for example, S. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (London 1953); S. Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: the case for feminist revolution (New York 1971).

²² See, for example, N. Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender (Berkeley 1978); M. O'Brien, The Politics of Reproduction (London 1981); A. Dally, Inventing Motherhood: the consequences of an ideal (London 1982).

²³ See, for example, G. Lloyd, The Man of Reason: Male and Female in Western Philosophy (London 1984); S.M. Okin, Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton NJ 1979); Barron, A., “Feminism, Aestheticism and the Limits of Law” (2000) 8 F.L.S. 275Google Scholar; Naffine, N., “The Legal Structure of Self-Ownership: or the Self-Possessed Man and the Woman Possessed (1998) 25 J.L.S. 193CrossRefGoogle Scholar; N. Naffine, Law's Meaning of Life: Philosophy, Religion, Darwin and the Legal Person (Oxford 2009). See generally C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (London 1982).

²⁴ West, R., “Jurisprudence and Gender” (1988) 55 University of Chicago Law Review 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C.A. MacKinnon, Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues (London 2006); N. Naffine, Law's Meaning of Life: Philosophy, Religion, Darwin and the Legal Person (Oxford: Hart 2009).

²⁵ Odièvre v France (Application no. 42326/98), Judgment 13 February 2003, 38 E.H.R.R. 43.

²⁶ Kearns v France (Application no. 35991/04), Judgment 10 January 2008.

²⁷ For more detailed analysis of these issues, see O'Donovan, “Enfants Trouvés”, and “ ‘Real’ Mothers”; Marshall, J., “Giving Birth but Refusing Motherhood: Inauthentic Choice or Self-Determining Identity?” (2008) 4 International Journal of Law in Context 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The two empirical studies are by French experts: C. Bonnet, Gesture of Love (Paris 1991) and N. Lefaucheur, Etude-Enfants nés sous X (Paris 2000). See also Lefaucheur, N., “The French ‘tradition’ of anonymous birthing: the lines of argument” (2004) 18 International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 319CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Which is the title of the author, Bonnet's, book on the subject and was influential in the early 1990's in debates in the French parliament on the issue of anonymous birthing as well as in country-wide debates generally.

²⁹ Of such importance in the French legal system that it is a breach of an aspect of private life to publish without her consent, information that a woman is pregnant, even though her condition is visibly public – see para. [37] of the Odièvre judgment, above note 25.

³⁰ O'Donovan. “ ‘Real’ Mothers”, p. 363.

³¹ Odièvre v France, above note 25, at [15], [36]–[39].

³² The French government in Odièvre presented evidence of three main categories of women who chose to give birth anonymously: young women who were not yet independent; young women still living with parents in Muslim families originally from North African or Sub-Saharan African societies in which pregnancy outside marriage was a great dishonour; isolated women with financial difficulties, some the victims of domestic violence. Reasons for seeking confidentiality sometimes included rape or incest – see paragraph [36]. See also J. Selwyn et al.'s research as explained in footnote 6 above.

³³ Research on infanticide suggests that a proportion of cases can be explained in these terms. See O'Donovan, “ ‘Real’ Mothers” above note 8.

³⁴ Odièvre v France, above note 25, at [30].

³⁵ This seems to be the implication of A. Bainham “Birthrights? The Rights and Obligations Associated with the Birth of a Child” in J.R. Spencer and A. Du Bois-Pedain (eds.) Freedom and Responsibility in Reproductive Choice (Oxford 2006), 162 and Bainham, “Arguments about Parentage” above note 2.

³⁶ O'Donovan, “Enfants Trouvés”, pp. 66 and 77.

³⁷ Ibid., and “ ‘Real’ Mothers” above note 8.

³⁸ Adoption and Children Act 2002, s. 52(3).

³⁹ H. Reece, Divorcing Responsibly (Oxford 2003), in a different context, argues that the search for authenticity, in following the right path in personal decisions, can be never ending, and is an aspect of the therapeutic state. Eventually this search is coercive, as much so as the traditional rules it replaces.

⁴⁰ Cossey v U.K. (Application no. 10843/84) (1990) 13 E.H.R.R. 622.

⁴¹ Charles Taylor describes the evolution of this development as modern freedom being won by our breaking loose from older moral horizons. People used to see themselves as part of a larger order. In some cases, this was a cosmic order, a “great chain of Being,” in which humans figured in their proper place along with the angels, heavenly bodies, and our fellow earthly creatures. This hierarchical order in the universe was reflected in the hierarchies of human society. People were often locked into a given place, a role and station that was properly theirs and from which it was almost unthinkable to deviate. Modern freedom came about through the discrediting of such orders: C. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge 1989); id., The Ethics of Authenticity (London 1991) and see also C. Guignon, On Being Authentic (London 2004), p. 3.

⁴² Aristotle The Nichomachean Ethics (Oxford 1986); for modern communitarians see M. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 2^nd edn. (Cambridge 1998), S. Avineri and A. De-Shalit (eds.), Communitarianism and Individualism (Oxford 1992). For radical feminists see MacKinnon, above note 24; for cultural feminists see Gilligan above note 23, West above note 24, and Rich above note 20. For the post-liberal self see, for example, M Griffiths Feminisms and the Self: the Web of Identity (London 1995) and analysis by H Reece, Divorcing Responsibly, in the context of divorce. For an example of the personal development industry on this see P. McGraw Self Matters (London 2001).

⁴³ Guignon, On Being Authentic, p. 3.

⁴⁴ The wording, but not the context, is from T. Regan, Matters of Life and Death (London 1986), 27.

⁴⁵ See, for example, Arden L.J.'s remarks in Re C (a child) (adoption: duty of local authority) [2007] EWCA Civ 1206 discussed below in the third part of this article.

⁴⁶ I. Brockington, Motherhood and Mental Health (Oxford 1996).

⁴⁷ E. Lee et al., A Matter of Choice? (York 2004).

⁴⁸ See references above note 11. See also the Family Law Committee of the Law Society response to the DWP 2007 consultation on joint birth registration referred to by Sheldon, “From ‘Absent Objects of Blame’ ”, p. 379.

⁴⁹ See further O'Donovan and Marshall, “After Birth”, above note 10.

⁵⁰ See above note 8: O'Donovan “Enfants Trouvés” and O'Donovan “ “Real” Mothers”; Sherr et al., “Abandoned babies”. As already stated, giving birth in secret “abandonment” situations is beyond the scope of this article.

⁵¹ As for example reported in Re L [2007] EWHC 1771 at [2].

⁵² Z County Council v R [2001] 1 F.C.R. 238; Re R (a child)(adoption: disclosure) [2001] 1 F.C.R. 238. The relevant law was then to be found in the Adoption Act 1976 and the Children Act 1989. This is to be contrasted with a case very different on the facts, Birmingham City Council v S and Others [2006] EWHC 3065 (Fam). In that case, it was the unmarried father who sought to stop the mother from revealing the child's existence to his family. He was unsuccessful. However, in that case, one of the reasons for this was that the judge was not satisfied that he had either the authority, or should try to exercise it if he had, to forbid the mother from disclosing to anyone not associated with the proceedings the identity of the child's father, at [72].

⁵³ Z County Council v R [2001] 1 F.L.R. 365, 367, also reported as Re R (a child) (adoption: disclosure) [2001] 1 F.C.R. 238, 240. Lord Justice Thorpe in the case of Re C (a child) (adoption: duty of local authority), alternatively known as C v X, Y and Z [2007] EWCA Civ 1206 also noted that there are no statistics as to the number of young mothers who seek to conceal their pregnancy, avoid prenatal preparation and who then “abandon” their new born baby immediately on birth relying on the State to find an adoptive family.

⁵⁴ Re R at p. 244.

⁵⁵ Ibid at p. 248.

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷ Re L at [38].

⁵⁸ Ibid. at [38].

⁵⁹ Ibid. at [40].

⁶⁰ Re C (a child) (adoption: duty of local authority) [2007] EWCA Civ 1206. See further discussion below.

⁶¹ Re L at [29].

⁶² It is hoped in this regard that when the mandatory joint registration provisions are implemented that there is no corresponding rise in concealed births, abandoned babies or infanticide.

⁶³ Reece, H. “The Paramountcy Principle: Consensus or Construct” (1996) 49 C.L.P. 267Google Scholar. See also Sheldon above note 11.

⁶⁴ Re H; Re G (Adoption: Consultation of Unmarried Fathers) [2001] 1 F.C.R.726 at [53]. She referred to this judgment in the later Court of Appeal decision Re B (a child) (by her guardian ad litem, the Official Solicitor) v RP, “W” County Council, SB (2001) 1 F.L.R. 589. However, this Court of Appeal judgment was successfully appealed to the House of Lords. Whilst expressing her understanding for a desire among local authorities to treat information as confidential and not to pursue investigations in relation to a father if the mother was anxious that it should not be done, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss P explicitly stated that her judgment was “designed to alert local authorities to the fact that this is the wrong way round and they should be looking to inform the father in the majority of cases. The desire of the mother for confidentiality is not in itself a reason for not giving the father an opportunity to be heard as to the future welfare of this child.” at paragraph [45] referring to her earlier decision of Re H; Re G.

⁶⁵ Lebbink v the Netherlands (Application no. 45582/99) (2005) 40 E.H.R.R. 18 at paragraph 37.

⁶⁶ See, for example, MrMunby, Justice “Families old and new – the family and Article 8” [2005] 17 C.F.L.Q. 487Google Scholar; R. Collier Masculinity, Law and the Family (London 1995); R. Collier and S. Sheldon, Fragmenting Fatherhood: A Socio Legal Analysis (Oxford 2008); A. Diduck, “ ‘If only we find the appropriate terms to use the issue will be solved’: Law, Identity and Parenthood” [2007] C.F.L.Q. 458; C. Smart “The Ethic of Justice Strikes Back: Changing Narratives of Fatherhood” in A. Diduck and K. O'Donovan (eds.), Feminist Perspectives on Family Law (London 2006), 123; J. Herring Family Law (London 2007); S. Choudhry and J. Herring, European Human Rights and Family Law (Oxford 2010).

⁶⁷ Sheldon above note 11.

⁶⁸ Kroon v the Netherlands (Application no. 18535/91) (1995) 19 E.H.R.R. 263; X, Y and Z v the United Kingdom (Application no. 32666/10) (1997) 24 E.H.R.R. 143; Gorgulu v Germany (Application no. 74969/01) Judgment 26 February 2004.

⁶⁹ M v F [2011] EWCA Civ 273 (CA).

⁷⁰ Ibid. per Black L.J. at [37].

⁷¹ Ibid. at [49].

⁷² The mother gave oral evidence in Punjabi through a translator – see paragraph 24 of the judgment.

⁷³ M v F per Thorpe L.J. at paragraph 4, quoting paragraph 15 of Mostyn J.'s judgment from the court of first instance.

⁷⁴ M v F per Black L.J. at [45], Longmore L.J. at [25], and Thorpe L.J. at [22]-[23] who stated that “in family proceedings it is extremely dangerous to state that there is only a single path to exceptionality.”

⁷⁵ Re AB (Care Proceedings) [2003] EWCA Civ 1842.

⁷⁶ Ibid at paragraph 19. See K. O'Donovan and J. Marshall, above note 10. In M v F, above note 69, Mostyn J stated the relationship between the mother and the putative father in Re AB as “likely the result of an adulterous affair while she was in a long established marriage with her husband” at [40], as quoted by Thorpe L.J. at the CA.

⁷⁷ M v F [2011] EWCA Civ 273 at [46], set out in Thorpe L.J.'s judgment at the CA, at [7].

⁷⁸ S. 47(2)(c) and s. 52(1) of the Adoption of Children Act 2002 permit the court to dispense with the consent of a parent with parental responsibility, like a married father, if the welfare of the child requires it.

⁷⁹ Re S (a child) (adoption proceedings: joinder of father) [2001] 1 F.C.R. 158 (CA).

⁸⁰ Ibid at paragraphs 20 and 21.

⁸¹ In Re M (Adoption: Rights of Natural Father) [2001] 1 F.L.R. 745, the father was not contacted as there was “no established family life”. See also Re M (Adoption: Rights of Natural Father) [2001] F.L.J.240. Where “family life” is established the Court will require that the father be contacted: Re R (Adoption: Father's Involvement) [2002] 1 FLR 302. In Re J (Adoption: Contacting Father) Family Division 14 February 2003, upon the woman's request, the father of a child placed for adoption was not contacted.

⁸² See for example, Re L above note 51. However, in this case, as explained in Part One above, the judge decided in the unmarried woman's favour.

⁸³ Kroon's case cited above at note 68.

⁸⁴ Re H; Re G above note 64.

⁸⁵ Re C above note 60.

⁸⁶ Re X (Care: Notice of Proceedings) [1996] 1 F.L.R.186. In this case, the unmarried mother was described as a Bangladeshi girl of 17 years old. The father was her brother-in-law who did not know of the birth of the child. There was evidence that if the liaison was known to “the community”, the mother would face ostracism, the family of the father would be put under great strain and the “overall effect would be catastrophic, with a real danger of very serious violence”. This being the case, the court did not require the father to be informed.

⁸⁷ Re H; Re G above note 64.

⁸⁸ Ibid at [51]–[52].

⁸⁹ Re H part of the Re H; Re G judgment above note 64.

⁹⁰ Per Dame Elizabeth Butler Sloss referring to Ewbank J. in Re P (adoption) in her judgment in Re H; Re G at [30]–[31].

⁹¹ Ibid. at [48].

⁹² Ibid at [50].

⁹³ Re C above note 60 at [32].

⁹⁴ Ibid. per Thorpe L.J. at [76].

⁹⁵ Chambers, L., “Newborn Adoption: Birth mothers, Genetic fathers, and Reproductive Autonomy” (2010) 26 Can. J. Fam. L. 339–393Google Scholar at 344.

⁹⁶ Ibid., p. 343.

⁹⁷ United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by General Assembly Resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989, Article 7.

⁹⁸ A. Bainham, “What is the point of birth registration?” [2008] Child and Family Law Quarterly 449.

⁹⁹ Choudhry and Herring, European Human Rights and Family Law. See also S. Besson, “Enforcing the Child's Right to Know her Origins: Contrasting Approaches under the Convention on the rights of the child and the European Court of Human Rights (2007) 21 International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 137; E. Jackson “What Is a Parent?” in Diduck and O'Donovan (eds.), Feminist Perspectives, 59.

¹⁰⁰ For example, see Bainham, “Birthrights” above note 35.

¹⁰¹ M. Thompson, Me (Stocksfield 2009), 91–92.

¹⁰² Odièvre v France above note 25, at paragraph O-IV3 of Joint Dissenting Opinions of Judges Wildhaber, Bratza, Bonello, Loucaides, Cabral Barreto, Tulkens and Pellonpää.

¹⁰³ Ibid. at paragraph O-IV11.

¹⁰⁴ Application No, 58757/00, (2008) 47 E.H.R.R. 30.

¹⁰⁵ Including Gaskin v U.K. (1989) 12 E.H.R.R. 36, Mikulic v Croatia (Application No. 53176/99), Judgment 7 February 2002.

¹⁰⁶ Jaggi at [38].

¹⁰⁷ Ibid. at [38] and [40].

¹⁰⁸ Odièvre v France, 38 E.H.R.R. at paragraphs O-IV17-20.

¹⁰⁹ K. O'Donovan, Sexual Divisions in the Law (London 1985); E. Jackson, Regulating Reproduction: Law, Technology and Autonomy (Oxford 2001).

¹¹⁰ See O'Donovan, Sexual Divisions. In 1975, in U.K. it became possible, once they had reached 18, for adopted children to receive their original birth certificate, although this does not necessarily reveal very much about one's genetic origins. See Jackson, Regulating Reproduction, pp. 214–5; Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Cmnd. 9314), paras 4.21–4.22, 6.6, 7.7. D Feldman, Civil Liberties and Human Rights in England and Wales, 2nd edn. (Oxford 2002), 748.

¹¹¹ Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Disclosure of Donor Information) Regulations 2004. See also Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority Act 2008, ss. 31ZA ff.

¹¹² A similar version can be seen in the English case of Rose and another v Secretary of State for Health and another [2002] EWHC 1593 (Admin). This concerned the right of a child to know who donated sperm to help create their life. It was decided before the recent changes to the previous anonymous system. Scott Baker J. interpreted Article 8 as providing the right to obtain information about a sperm donor expressed in terms of a person who contributed to the identity of the child. As Article 8 incorporates the concept of personal identity, in his interpretation, this “plainly included” the right to obtain information about a biological parent. In his view, the information sought went to “the very heart of the claimants' identity and to their make up as human beings” (my emphasis).

¹¹³ All of the quotes that follow are taken from House of Lords debates 9 June 2004 www.theyworkforyou.com/lords.

¹¹⁴ Ibid. On before children are conceived see Jackson, E., “Conception and the Irrelevance of the Welfare Principle” (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 176–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is no duty on parents to disclose that the child has been conceived through donor gametes. As Bainham has pointed out, this may have implications for a child born to a woman and a man as compared to a child born to a same sex couple where the need for a donor is obvious: “Arguments about Parentage”, above note 2.

¹¹⁵ See Department of Work and Pensions, “Joint Registration: Promoting Parental Responsibility” (Cm. 7160), paragraph 6.

¹¹⁶ See Joint Council of Europe and European Commission document, above note 3, p. 28.

¹¹⁷ Ibid. at p 29.

¹¹⁸ Article 7 of the CRC. See interpretations of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 right to private life in Gaskin v U.K.(1990) 12 E.H.R.R. 36 and Mikulic v Croatia (Application No. 53176/99), Judgment 4 Sept 2002, [2002] F.C.R. 20.

¹¹⁹ Fortin, J., “Children's Right to Know their Origins – Too far, too fast?” (2009) 21Child and Family Law Quarterly 336Google Scholar.

¹²⁰ Re C (a child) (adoption: duty of local authority) [2007] EWCA Civ 1206 at [1].

¹²¹ Ibid., at [3] per Arden L.J.

¹²² Ibid., quoted by Thorpe L.J. at [75].

¹²³ Ibid. at [21] and [17].

¹²⁴ Ibid., at [37] and [38].

¹²⁵ Ibid. at [25].

¹²⁶ Ibid. at [43].

¹²⁷ Ibid. at [15] per Arden L.J. referring to Adoption and Children Act 2002, s. 1.

¹²⁸ Ibid. at [23].

¹²⁹ See, for example, Goodwin v the United Kingdom and I v the United Kingdom (2002) 35 E.H.R.R. 18.

¹³⁰ As in Gaskin v U.K. 12 E.H.R.R. 36; M.G. v U.K. (Application no. 39393/98), Judgment 24 September 2002.

¹³¹ J. Marshall, “Personal Freedom”, above note 5.