Judges in Milan on Tuesday declared illegitimate the transcription of the registration of double maternity for the children of three lesbian couples born abroad through assisted fertility, overturning an earlier ruling in their favor.
The family section of the civil court of appeal in the Lombardy regional capital upheld an appeal by the public prosecutor's office against a June 23, 2023 ruling acknowledging as valid the transcription of the double maternity in the civil registry.
In their ruling the judges said on the issue of the registration of children born to same-sex couples parliament must intervene.
"The court recognizes that the matter in question requires the intervention of the legislature, which is the only body able to draw up a suitable detailed regulatory plan that correctly formulates the rights of the subjects involved in medically assisted human procreation, balancing constitutional rights that must not come into conflict, including those of the unbornchild, a subject capable of rights in its being and becoming," said the court in a statement.
The issue has been a hot topic in Italy since March 2023, when the right-centre government of Premier Giorgia Meloni drew criticism from the opposition and rights activists after it instructed city mayors to stop registering the children of same-sex couples using a procedure based on the transcription into Italian civil registers of the foreign birth certificates of children conceived via surrogacy, which is a crime in Italy, or assisted fertility, which is only available to heterosexual couples in Italy, citing a ruling by the Court of Cassation, Italy's highest court.
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