AB v CD and another [2013] EWHC 1418 (Fam)
Family Division, Cobb J, 24 May 2013
The Family Court has given guidance on the determination of whether someone is a “parent”
Martin Kingerley for AB. Marisa Allman for CD. Ashley Thain for the Intervenor
The applicant, AB, was a lesbian woman aged 37. She began a relationship with CD in 1997. They attended the intervenor, a fertilisation clinic, in 2008. AB considered that such a clinic would enhance her prospect of acquiring “equal rights” to the children. They attended counselling and then a meeting with a consultant gynaecologist. AB signed a form which provided that she acknowledged that she and CD were being treated together and that she intended to have parental rights for any resulting child. Thereafter they had three rounds of treatment. In April 2009, Part II of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (which amended the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990) came into force, which enabled the partner of a woman who had a child by IVF or donor insemination to be recognised as the child’s legal
