1. Some technical points of difference do remain. See Jones, C ‘The (im)possible parents in law’ in Lind, C, Bridgeman, J and Keating, H (eds) Taking Responsibility: Law and the Changing Family (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) pp 201–220 Google Scholar and Sheldon, S and McCandless, J ‘the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (2008) and the tenacity of the sexual family form’ (2010) 73 Modern Law Review 175 Google Scholar. Details of the relevant provisions will be outlined later.

2. Wilberforce LJ in Re D (an infant)[1977] AC 602 (CA) at 629. This position was supported in S v S (1980) 1 FLR 143.

3. C v C (a minor) (custody: appeal)[1991] FLR 223 (CA).

4. Per Glidewell LJ, ibid.

5. Reece, H ‘Subverting the stigmatisation argument’ (2006) 23 J Law and Society 484 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 486.

6. This is in spite of the fact that in the interim years a rise in the number of lesbian planned births can be traced in figures showing that the number of donor insemination treatment cycles provided for lesbian couples in the UK increased fourfold between 2000 and 2005, amounting to 14.4% of the total cycles provided at the end of that period: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority Figures for Treatment of Single Women and Lesbian Couples 2000–2005, available at http://www.hfea.gov.uk/docs/Figures_for_treatment_of_single_women_and_lesbian_couples_2000-2005.pdf.

7. In America, a body of academic writing on this difficulty was already in existence, underpinned by an emerging body of case-law on the issue, by the early 1990s. See, eg, Polikoff, N ‘This child does have two mothers: redefining parenthood to meet the needs of children in lesbian mother and other non-traditional families’ (1990) 78 Georgetown Law J 459 Google Scholar; Arnup, K ‘Living in the margins: lesbian families and the law’ in Arnup, K (ed) Lesbian Parenting: Living With Pride and Prejudice (Charlottetown: Gynergy Books, 1995 Google Scholar).

8. Re G (Residence: same sex partner)[2005] EWCA Civ 462.

9. Section 12(2) Children Act 1989 states that parental responsibility is conferred on anyone with a residence order. Parental responsibility is defined in s 3(1) as ‘all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property’. This does not amount to legal parental status, however.

10. It was stated that that the outcome would have been evident if W had been an unmarried father seeking parental responsibility under the same circumstances (although an unmarried father would have been able to apply directly for parental responsibility under s 4 Children Act 1989).

11. Per Thorpe LJ at [27].

12. Though note that some ambiguity might remain when disputes arise between separated lesbian parents. An early indication that this was the case came when the parties from Re G returned to court in a residence dispute which progressed to the House of Lords (Re G (Children) (Residence: Same-sex Partner)[2006] UKHL 43; [2006] 1 WLR 2305). The case has been extensively commented upon elsewhere and is only tangentially relevant to the focus of this article, so it will not be considered in depth here. Discussion can be found in Smith, L ‘Re G (Children) (Residence: Same-sex Partner) [2006] Ukhl 43’ (2007) 29 J Social Welfare and Family Law 307 Google Scholar.

13. Waaldijk, K ‘Standard sequences in the legal recognition of homosexuality: Europe's past, present and future’ (1994) 4 Australasian Gay and Lesbian Law J 50 Google Scholar at 72.

14. This is a distilled interpretation of the sequence, which, in Waaldijk's terms, moves from criminalisation, to decriminalisation, to equalising the age of consent, anti-discrimination legislation and legal recognition of partnership.

15. Weeks, J, Heaphy, B and Donovan, C Same Sex Intimacies: Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments (London: Routledge, 2001) p 158 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Parenting between two men remains problematic legally, not least because it requires adoption or the use of a surrogate. The 2008 Act does, however, remove the previous restriction on applying for parental orders following a the birth of a child to a surrogate to commissioning couples who were married. Unmarried couples, both opposite and same-sex, may now apply to be treated as the parents of a child born to a surrogate.

17. In line with this it makes sense that Re G and the 2008 Act did not occur in a vacuum. They were precipitated by the legalisation of same-sex adoption in the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the introduction of the first anti-discriminatory legislation applicable to gays and lesbians (Employment Equality (sexual orientation) Regulations 2003), the repeal of the infamous section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, and the Civil Partnership Act 2004. These steps contributed to a legal and social climate more sensitive to same-sex relationships, thus preparing the ground for better receptiveness to the idea of lesbian parenting.

18. I do not intend to suggest here that all same-sex couples construct their intimate and family relationships according to principles and practices which differ from conventional heterosexual relationships. However, plenty of research demonstrates that many same-sex couples do make a conscious decision to shun conventional heterosexual relationship norms. See, eg, Weston, K Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship (New York: Columbia University Press, 2nd edn, 1998 Google Scholar).

19. Lind, C ‘Sexuality and same-sex relationships in law’ in Brooks-Gordon, B et al (eds) Sexuality Repositioned (Oxford: Hart, 2004) p 109 Google Scholar and Diduck, A ‘a family by any other name...or Starbucks comes to England’ (2001) 28 J Law and Society 290 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. See Weston, above n 18, and Weeks et al, above n 15.

21. Lind, above n 19, p 126.

22. This is perhaps unsurprising given that a great deal of the debate has been focused on whether there can be full equality without opening up same-sex marriage.

23. Burden and Burden v United Kingdom (App No 13378/05, ECHR) 2008. For discussion see Glennon, L ‘Obligations between adult partners: moving from form to function?’ (2008) 22 Int J Law, Policy and the Family 22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. In November 2009, Tom Freeman and Katharine Doyle applied to register a civil partnership and the inevitable refusal of permission on the grounds that they were not of the same sex was highly publicised. The couple, who are in part protesting against the continued exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, later coordinated a more widespread challenge under the banner of the ‘Equal Love Campaign’.

25. See Sheldon, S ‘Reproductive technologies and the legal determination of fatherhood’ (2005) 13 Feminist Legal Studies 349 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R Probert ‘Families, assisted reproduction and the law’[2004] Child and Family Law Q 273, for discussion of how this model is emulated in the 2008 Act and its predecessor, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

26. Difference feminists were the first to critique the assimilationist consequences of recognition of different relationships, experiences and behaviours on equal terms. For a discussion of their ideas see chapters 6 and 7 of Lacey, N Unspeakable Subjects: Feminist Essays in Legal and Social Theory (Hart: Oxford, 1998 Google Scholar).

27. Diduck, A Law's Families (London: Butterworths, 2003) p 210 Google Scholar.

28. In other words, the goal should not be simple recognition on equal terms, but a chance to contribute to the construction and meaning of the terms. This is part of what the feminist project of ‘normative reconstruction’ (see Lacey, above n 26, ch 8) exhorts us to do. It is a practical, reformist manifestation of the ‘utopian’ project of reimagining identities and the terms of social and regulatory practices that theorists such as Drucilla Cornell have engaged in: Cornell, D Beyond Accommodation: Ethical Feminism, Deconstruction and the Law (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999 Google Scholar) and The Imaginary Domain: Abortion, Pornography and Sexual Harrassment (London: Routledge, 1995).

29. There is scope for reasonable debate over whether the term ‘father’ is preferable to ‘known donor’ in these cases. The term ‘father’ features in the judgments of all the cases discussed in this article, though it is sometimes qualified in a phrase such as ‘donor father’ or ‘biological father’. For consistency and straightforwardness, the term ‘father’ will therefore be used in the discussion of the cases here. It is not the intention of this article to enter into lengthy debate over the significance of the terminology, though this is not to say that such a debate would not be worthwhile.

30. [2006] EWHC 2 (Fam); [2006] 1 FCR 556.

31. The earlier cited Scots case of X v Y (Parental Rights: Insemination) 2002 SLT (Sh Ct) 161, dealt with this issue, however. In addition, at least one unreported case of this nature was previously heard by the Family Division of the High Court: Re M (sperm donor father) Family Division, 15 November 2001 (unreported). See G Douglas [2003] Family Law 94 for a summary casenote.

32. [2006] 1 FCR 556 at 582. Specifically, B was prohibited from seeking any involvement with the child's education or medical care without the prior written permission of the lesbian couple.

33. Ibid, at 583.

34. [2007] EWHC 1952 (Fam); [2008] 1 FLR 1015.

35. It is not possible to tell from the judgment whether there was a clear and unequivocal intention to bring the child up knowing who his father was in this case but some contact was certainly envisaged as a minimum.

36. [2008] 1 FLR 1015 at 1022.

37. Ibid, at 1023.

38. [2010] EWHC 417 (Fam); [2010] 2 FLR 383.

39. Since December 2003, fathers named on their child's birth certificate have automatically obtained parental responsibility under s 4(a) Children Act 1989 (as amended by the Adoption and Children Act 2002). The child in this case was born before the relevant amendment came into force.

40. Section 4A(1)(a) Children Act 1989 makes provision for parental responsibility to be extended in this way to step-parents in civil partnerships.

41. [2010] 2 FLR 383 at 392.

42. [2010] EWCA Civ 1366; [2011] 1 FCR 267. For detailed discussion of this decision, see Smith, L ‘T v T (shared residence) [2010] Ewca Civ 1366’ (2011) 33 J Social Welfare and Family Law 175 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43. This was possible under s 4A Children Act 1989 because the lesbian couple had by then entered into a civil partnership.

44. The child was seven years old and the CAFCASS officer had advised against forcing the issue.

45. [2011] EWHC 3431 (Fam). This judgment needs to be read in tandem with an earlier one in which interim contact was awarded: ML and another v RW and another[2011] EWHC 2455 (Fam).

46. The father's application for a residence order had been dismissed in the earlier hearing (see above).

47. [2011] EWHC 3431 (Fam) at [3]. The judge comments on the possibility that this could in theory lead to public law proceedings several times in the judgment, though he doesn't go so far as to say that they are actually necessary.

48. Ibid, at [5].

49. Ibid, at [8].

50. Ibid, at [5]. The concept is explained in more depth in the earlier judgment, above n 45.

51. It was made clear that it would be preferable for both children to have direct contact with the father but noted that, unless and until the lesbian couple could be persuaded to present her with a more positive view of the benefits of contact, it would not be in her interests to force it against her will.

52. [2012] EWCA Civ 285.

53. The biological mother had a very religious family and feared that they would not accept her pregnancy if she was not married. She and the known donor therefore went through a marriage ceremony prior to the child's birth though there was never a relationship between them and they never lived together. This unusual added complication did not appear to influence decision making either in the High Court or the Court of Appeal.

54. Initially they also sought specific issue orders to restrict A's exercise of parental responsibility, but this aspect of their application appears to have been dropped.

55. There was no order under s 91(4) to rule out further applications, but the Court of Appeal later expressed a view that his comments on future contact would undoubtedly prejudice a future application to extend contact.

56. For example, she noted that the child was deliberately created and all concerned were aware of the couple's intention to be primary carers ([2006] 1 FCR 556 at 561). The potential threat to the stability of the lesbian family unit and the impact on society's perception of the family relationships which might be a consequence of giving parental responsibility to D were also noted (ibid, at 581).

57. [2006] 1 FCR 556 at 565.

58. On a conceptual level, it is significant that it is the investment of parental responsibility in legal parents, not their status as legal parents per se, that cloaks them with the powers necessary to execute day-to-day care. This was acknowledged in Re S (a minor) (parental responsibility)[1995] 3 FCR 225.

59. Section 3(1) Children Act 1989 describes parental responsibility as ‘all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property’.

60. Critical accounts can be found in Gilmore, S ‘Parental responsibility and the unmarried father: a new dimension to the debate’ (2003) 15 Child and Family Law Q 21 Google Scholar; Reece, H The degradation of parental responsibility in Probert, R, Gilmore, S and Herring, J (eds) Responsible Parents and Parental Responsibility (Oxford: Hart, 2009) pp 85–102 Google Scholar; and Harris, P and George, R ‘Parental responsibility and shared residence orders: parliamentary intentions and judicial interpretations’ (2010) 22 Child and Family Law Q 151 Google Scholar.

61. As in Re G (Residence: same sex partner)[2005] EWCA Civ 462.

62. Section 4A Children Act 1989 permits this. Even after step-parents have separated from the child's parent there are cases in which shared residence has been used as an indirect route to granting them parental responsibility: Re H (Shared residence: Parental Responsibility)[1995] 2 FLR 1023; Re A (a child) (joint residence: parental responsibility)[2008] 2 FLR 1593.

63. Re B (a child) (residence order)[2009] UKSC; [2010] 1 All ER 223.

64. See, eg, M v M (parental responsibility) (1999) 2 FLR 737, where the father did not have capacity to exercise parental responsibility because he was left mentally impaired following an accident. The scope for the courts to make decisions about which fathers should qualify for parental responsibility has been heavily circumscribed by, first, the decision to extend parental responsibility automatically to all fathers named on birth certificates (s 4 Children Act 1989, as amended by the Adoption and Children Act 2002) and, second, the decision to make joint birth registration a legal requirement (via changes effected by the Welfare Reform Act 2009, Sch 6).

65. Reece, above n 60, pp 90–94.

66. Reece, above n 60.

67. Further critique of the decision can be found in McCandless, J ‘Status and anomaly: Re D (contact and parental responsibility: lesbian mothers and known father) [2006]’ (2008) 30 J Social Welfare and Family Law 63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68. In doing so he was invoking the relevance of s 1(5) Children Act 1989 to the circumstances of the case. Known as the ‘no-order’ principle the section states that the court should not make any order relating to the upbringing of a child ‘unless it considers that doing so would be better for the child than making no order at all’.

69. [2008] 1 FLR 1015 at 1022. The criteria, as set out in Re H (Parental Responsibility)[1998] 1 FLR 855, involve scrutinising the commitment, attachment and motivation of the applicant, though the bar has arguably been set very low in respect of each of them.

70. [2008] 1 FLR 1015 at 1015. Section 1(1) reads: ‘When a court determines any question with respect to (a) the upbringing of a child; or (b) the administration of a child's property or the application of any income arising from it, the child's welfare shall be the court's paramount consideration.’

71. [2008] 1 FLR 1015 at 1022–1023.

72. [2010] 2 FLR 383 at 389.

73. Guardianship and Custody, Law Com No 172 (London: HMSO, 1988) at [2.4].

74. [2010] 2 FLR 383 at 390.

75. Of course, it is arguable that the outcomes were not substantively very different given the significantly diluted version of parental responsibility that was granted to the father in Re D. Linking the ‘creative’ use of parental responsibility in the first case and the decision to make no order in the other two is a shared view that there is a need to distinguish between the different types of parental relationship in these unusual cases and those in more conventional cases; the comprehensive parental responsibility usually given to fathers was considered inappropriate by all three judges. Re D can also be distinguished on the basis that the father was prepared to settle for a diluted form of parental responsibility, whereas the fathers in the other cases gave no indication that this was the case for them. The father in Re D could therefore be seen as less of threat to the lesbian couple's parenting.

76. [2006] 1 FCR 556 at 575.

77. This point is made in L Smith ‘Is three a crowd? Lesbian mothers’ perspectives on parental status in law' (2006) 18 Child and Family Law Quarterly 231.

78. [2006] 1 FCR 556 at 583.

79. Ibid, at 582.

80. [2008] 1 FLR 1015 at 1018.

81. Ibid, at 1023.

82. [2010] 2 FLR 383 at 400. He also stated that: ‘Parenting, in my judgment, involves not just caring emotionally and physically for a child – important though that is – but also taking decisions’ (at 389).

83. Ibid, at 394.

84. Ibid, at 400.

85. Ibid, at 402.

86. [2011] EWHC 3431 (Fam) at [5].

87. Indeed, it would in theory be possible, though in practice probably rare, for Hedley's approach to lead to the conclusion that the lesbian couple and the father were all principal parents, if a genuinely equal role for each party was planned.

88. [2011] 1 FCR 267 at 272.

89. Note that no indication was given that the children's home ought to remain with the co-parent following such an event. Rather, it was considered that the children should be able to stay where they were until the court was able to settle the question of their future residence. Ibid, at 280.

90. Ibid.

91. [2011] EWHC 2455 (Fam) at [20] (emphasis added).

92. [2012] EWCA Civ 285 at [37] and [38]. Namely, by confusing and destabilising the family unit that was the main source of stability, nurture and security for the child and by amounting to a change in circumstances which would put his emotional needs at risk and have a likely harmful effect on him. It is noteworthy that Thorpe LJ suggests that Jenkins J ignored a number of factors relevant to welfare in his attempt to apply a developing rule to the case, though does not specify what any of these are beyond saying that A was involved in M's conception and wished to be a parent.

93. Examples include the principle that, all things being equal, it is in the interests of children to be raised by their parents when residence disputes arise with third parties and that it will normally be in children's interests for DNA tests to be used to resolve parentage disputes.

94. [2012] EWCA Civ 285 at [27]. This language is disconcertingly reminiscent of the judgemental language used in the very first lesbian parenting cases.

95. The relevant circumstances are that they are in a civil partnership and the co-parent consents to the insemination (s 42), or that they are treated at a licensed clinic and satisfy ‘agreed female parenthood conditions’ which concern, inter alia, the provision of valid consent by both parties (ss 43 and 44).

96. Section 41.

97. Note that it was possible for lesbian women to receive treatment as single women under the terms of the earlier Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. However, using a clinic brings costs, a bureaucratic process and, often, delays. Because lesbian partners could not qualify as legal parents at the end of this process under the 1990 Act, there was not much to dissuade lesbian couples from making informal arrangements if they felt inclined to do so.

98. See Smith, above n 77; K Almack ‘Seeking sperm: accounts of lesbian couples’ reproductive decision making and understandings of the needs of the child' (2006) 20 Int J Law Policy and the Family 1; Dunne, G ‘Opting into motherhood: lesbians blurring the boundaries and transforming the meaning of parenthood’ (2000) 1 J Gender and Society 14 Google Scholar; Donovan, C ‘Who needs a father? Negotiating biological fatherhood in British lesbian families using self-insemination’ (2000) 3 Sexualities 149 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99. It is an anomaly, though perhaps a deliberate one, in the legislation that the provisions do not stipulate that civil partners must receive treatment at a licensed clinic, as other partners must, in order for the parenthood provisions to apply. Provided the mother conceives by artificial insemination, her civil partner will be treated as the resulting parent irrespective of how the insemination was arranged, unless it is shown that she did not consent to the insemination.

100. Leckey, R ‘Law reform, lesbian parenting and the reflective claim’ (2011) 20 Social and Legal Studies 331 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101. Though in this instance it is arguable that the effect was intended. See Sheldon and McCandless, above n 1.

102. R Leckey, above n 100, at 340.

103. See Weston, above n 18, and Weeks et al, above n 15.

104. This point is acknowledged by Leckey, above n 100, at 341–342.

105. This possibility is discussed in Smith, above n 77.

106. In accordance with provisions contained in the HFE Act 1990 (as amended by the HFE Act 2008) and the HFEA Code of Practice relating to license conditions and the storage of sperm and selection of donors, it is necessary for donors to undergo extensive testing and screening processes for transmittable and heritable diseases which require the sperm to be stored for at least six months.

107. Article 538 CCQ.

108. Article 538.2, [1], CCQ. Article 538.2, [2], even encompasses situations in which a woman, as part of an agreed parental project, conceives through sexual intercourse, though there are some qualifications in such circumstances.

109. Though this regime brings some consistency it also brings its own uncertainties, not least interpretive and evidential problems around establishing the existence of a parental project. For discussion see Leckey, R ‘Where the parents are of the same sex: Quebec's reforms to filiation’ (2009) 23 Int J Law, Policy and the Family 62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Campbell, A ‘Conceiving parents through law’ (2007) 21 Int J Law, Policy and the Family 242 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

110. Section 60H Family Law Act 1975 as amended by the Family Law Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures) Act 2008.

111. The Australian system also brings its own evidential and interpretative difficulties, which are discussed in Millbank, J ‘De facto relationships, same-sex and surrogate parents: exploring the scope and effects of the 2008 federal relationship reforms’ (2009) 23 Australian J Family Law 160 Google Scholar.

112. McCandless and Sheldon, above n 1, at 188. See Sheldon, S ‘Reproductive technologies and the legal determination of fatherhood’ (2005) 13 Feminist Legal Studies 349 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and R Probert ‘Families, assisted reproduction and the law’ (2004) Child and Family Law Q 273 on how this trend was also evident in the terms of the preceding Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

113. This point is discussed further in Kelly, F ‘Nuclear norms or fluid families? Incorporating lesbian and gay parents and their children into Canadian family law’ (2004) 21 Canadian J Family Law 133 Google Scholar.

114. See s 10 Children Act 1989.

115. The welfare principle contained in s 1 Children Act 1989 requires that every case be examined and decided on its own facts. It is also possible that interaction between a donor and child might give rise to a relationship that falls within the right to respect for family life under Art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

116. Millbank, J ‘the limits of functional family: lesbian mother litigation in the era of the eternal biological family’ (2008) 22 Int J Law, Policy and the Family 149 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 160.

117. Examples include the US case of Thomas S v Robin Y 599 NYS2d 377 (1995), the New Zealand case of P v K[2006] NZFLR 22, and the Australian cases of H and J[2006] FMCA fam 514 and Wilson and Anor & Roberts and Anor (No. 2)[2010] FamCA 734.

118. The case was AA v Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages and BB[2011] NSWDC 100. The known donor had never been a legal parent but the lesbian co-parent only acquired the right to be named on the birth certificate some years after the child's birth. The Law and Safety Commission ‘Inclusion of donor details on the register of births (Inquiry)’ was launched in October 2011, but has not yet reported. See http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/7E4018E851966190CA25792D0017F32F?open&refnavid=CO4_1.

119. Of course, it could also be argued that the use of known donors represents a capitulation to the idea that fathers are essential and genetic relationships inalienably important on the part of lesbian parents themselves: Leckey, R ‘Law reform, lesbian parenting and the reflective claim’ (2011) 20 Social and Legal Studies 331 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kelly, above n 113. As Donovan (above n 98) notes, however, this interpretation risks ignoring some of the legitimate objectives of lesbians who opt to use known donors.

120. In fact, the known donor's long-term male partner was involved in the conception arrangements and in subsequent contact in both R v E and F and A v B and C.

121. There are already examples of cases in which biological mothers attempt to diminish the roles of lesbian co-parents following separation. Re G (above n 8) is an example from this jurisdiction. Millbank (above n 116) has chronicled numerous examples from other jurisdictions. The Australian case of AA v Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages and BB (above n 118) is an example of a case in which there had been litigation with both the known donor and the lesbian co-parent.

122. A. A v B. B[2007] ONCA 2.

123. Harder, L and Thomarat, M ‘Parentage law in Canada: the numbers game of standing and status’ (2012) 26 Int J Law, Policy and the Family 62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 78.

124. Ibid, at [3].

125. Millbank, above n 116.

126. As noted earlier, provided principles are treated as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules, principled decision making is not incompatible with s 1 Children Act 1989.

127. Though equal parenting time has not yet been supported in this jurisdiction, a commitment to increasing the quantity of time spent with absent parents is to be seen in the judiciary's increased use of shared residence orders. The ideal is likely to have influenced the outcomes of T v T and A v B and C.

128. Smart, C and Neale, B Family Fragments? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999 Google Scholar).

129. Ibid; Boyd, S Child Custody, Law and Women's Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003 Google Scholar); Wallbank, J ‘Getting tough on mothers: regulating contact and residence’ (2007) 15 Feminist Legal Studies 189 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harris-Short, S ‘Building a house upon sand: post-separation parenting, shared residence and equality – lessons from Sweden’ (2011) 23 Child and Family Law Quarterly 322 Google Scholar.

130. The overall message here is that certain conditions are necessary to make shared parenting workable and beneficial and they are seldom present among litigating parents. See Trinder, L ‘Shared residence: a review of recent research evidence’ (2010) 22 Child and Family Law Q 475 Google Scholar, for a full discussion of the relevant research.

131. Currently, there is little detailed advice available to those seeking to use a known donor. The online information available from the NHS is restricted to the following statement: ‘Some couples obtain donated sperm from someone they know. However, in most cases, sperm is obtained from an unknown donor’ (http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Artificial-insemination/Pages/Introduction.aspx). Information published directly by individual clinics tends similarly to comment on the possibility of using a known donor but not to elaborate on it. Even the HFEA itself publishes very little information about the use of known donors and what is available through their website is very difficult to find. There is no almost no guidance to be found on how to make parenting plans with known donors.

132. Although no specific figures on the number of people using known donors are recorded, the HFEA has reported a rise in the number of patients using gametes donated by someone they know and estimates that up to 16% of newly registered sperm donors may be donating to someone they know: HFEA Donating Sperm and Eggs. Have Your Say: A Review of the HFEA's Sperm and Egg Donation Policies (London: HFEA, 2011) pp 4 and 19. Available at http://www.hfea.gov.uk/docs/2011-01-13_Donation_review_background.pdf. Of course, heterosexuals are far more likely to use a known egg donor than a known sperm donor. Often the egg is donated by a sibling, but this is not necessarily a safeguard against relationship difficulties – the sperm donor in Re B was the brother of the co-parent.