Same-sex couples in Italy are being forced to lie about how their children were conceived due to strict and regressive laws.

These laws, which are heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, require a child to be conceived through “heterosexual sexual intercourse” in order for parents to register their child.

The law also affects heterosexual couples who choose In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to conceive.

The latest case in this issue has seen a local councillor in Turin, Chiara Fogletta, taking a stand against this issue.

She is refusing to lie about the conception of her and her partner Micaela’s son.

He was born on April 12 and was conceived using artificial insemination with an anonymous donor in Denmark.

Authorities have failed to recognise the child as they were not conceived through “heterosexual sexual intercourse”.

On Facebook, Foglietta wrote:

“Employees tell me both yesterday and today: you must declare that you had a union (sexual act) with a man to recognize your son. There is no formula to say you did medically assist procreation,’ Foglietta wrote on Facebook.

“Each child has the right to know their own history, the set of events that have generated it, and has the right to claim rights to those who wanted it.

“Once again, reality has to adapt to bureaucracy and not the other way around bringing people like me to a public office to declare false before the law.

“I need to make this stand not for me, but for Niccolò, for all Rainbow children, for families who do not have the same strength to face these battles, for the children of single women and those with partners who have chosen medically assisted procreation with external donors and want to tell the truth,’ she said. ‘The problem is today, not in the future, but in the present—the present that is here, now.”

An Important Road Forged

The politician took to Facebook again this morning to say that she and her partner’s protests were successful in getting the laws changed.

Due to the uproar created on social media, they have been able to register their son and in the process open an important road for all couples and rainbow families in future:

Today was not just an act. A name on a sheet. An important page of our story has been written.

Niccolò is now officially registered and is my son and of Micaela also for the Italian State.

We have opened an important road for all couples in our own situation, we have given courage to those women who no longer intend to declare false.
Thank you very much.

Because you have been so many to write to us, to devote a few words or gesture of affection to the courage.

But if we are here today we owe it to those who believed us right away, our lawyer Alexander Schuster, at the coordination Torino pride – and specifically to Alessandro Battaglia that has been fundamental and for years committed for all and all of us without Stop, to the trade unions Chiara Hanger, who had courage and put his face, and the junta.

Turin, not without fatigue, proves once again to the height of its history. An example to many other cities and other mayors in Italy.