Birth Certificates

The petition is entitled Make the fathers name compulsory on Birth Certificates and the explanatory notes say

"I feel that it should be compulsory that fathers names are shown on all Birth Certificates.At present only the mother can decide whether the fathers name is shown on the certificate. This is wrong, as the child has a right to know it's roots.I know from experience how awful it is not to know your parentage. It has completely ruined my life and I suspect hundreds and thousands of others too. I have never known the details who my father was as my mother to this day, will not divulge. No matter how dreadful the circumstances of my birth I feel I have a right to know. I have always felt like half a person,I hate it that others are feeling the same way! let's do something about this.Thank You!"

I'm very sorry about your heartbreak, oh petitioner. But do you think that this would actually work?

At present, as far as I can tell from the General Register Office website, a father who isn't married to the mother has to explicitly sign himself up to be registered as the father. He must do so in the presence of a JP, Magistrate or similar. So it wouldn't be possible to (as I had first thought she might do) mothers like yours to simply invent a name and address. But the simple question - how do you force a woman to say who the father is? I suppose you could make it a crime not to name the father - in which case I suppose you imprison a woman who's just given birth - and what on earth do you do with the baby?

Then you'd have to make special provision for anyone who'd been raped by a stranger, obviously. And indeed anyone who'd been raped full-stop, I should think, because even if you'd decided to keep a baby conceived in a rape (which I believe a few women do, for a variety of reasons) you might well justifiably not want the father getting parental responsibility.

Then there are - I believe - dippy women who get pregnant on one-night-stands when they don't know the father's name or anything about him. Hard to imagine for a cerebral prude like me, but I believe it happens. Is it really fair to criminalise this?

And of course you'd also have to criminalise refusing to be named. Which seems unfair - "they say" there are women who deceive men to get pregnant, and even if this is rare, I feel one should take the possibility into account in legislation.

In short, I really don't think that this is practical. I do not believe the petitioner has thought with his brain. And unfortunately, legislation that's all heart and no brain is not good legislation.