A milestone for the well-being of children in Finnish rainbow families: automatic co-parent recognition in Finland. NELFA welcomes the decision to recognise both women in same-sex partnerships as mothers from the moment their child is born.
The Network of European LGBTIQ* Families Associations, NELFA, is delighted by the recent legislative development in Finland. The Parliament in Helsinki approved a citizens’ initiative to allow children in rainbow families to have two mothers from birth.
The proposed change to the Maternity Act in Finland applies to same-sex partnerships where one of the women undergoes fertility treatment to become pregnant. So far, the woman not giving birth had to adopt the child in order to gain legal rights as a parent.
Juha Jämsä, Executive Director of Sateenkaariperheet (NELFA’s full member organisation in Finland), states, “The law is one of the most important milestones in the history of our association. It improves the status and the legal protection of children of female couples and provides legal certainty in an essential way. Next, there is a need to take care of the status and well-being of other kinds of rainbow families. In its report, the Law Committee of the Parliament refers to this need for future development.”