asked Her Majesty's Government:

What is meant by the term “father” in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. [HL956]

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill re-enacts the existing provisions set out in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 in relation to a child conceived as a result of assisted conception treatment and who is treated as the father of that child, where donor sperm is used. The woman's husband is the child's father, unless it can be shown that he did not consent to her treatment.

Clauses 36 and 37 of the Bill replace similar provisions in the 1990 Act which enable an unmarried man to be the father of a donor-conceived child if he is “treated together” with the mother in a licensed clinic. New provisions in the Bill require the couple each to have given consent by the time the embryo or gametes are placed in the woman, for the man to be treated as the father of any resulting child.

The Bill maintains the principle set out in the 1990 Act that if an unmarried couple carry out self-insemination with donor sperm outside a licensed treatment centre or non-medical fertility service, the male partner would not be the legal parent. In this situation, the man would have to acquire formal parental responsibility; for example, by adopting the child.

Clause 41 ensures that any man who acts as a sperm donor will not be treated as the legal father of any child born. Clause 38 reaffirms the position that where a person is treated as a child's father under the 1990 Act, no other person is to be treated as the father; for example, a sperm donor.