An Italian court has raised eyebrows all around the world this week, after ruling that twin boys born to a surrogate are not actually brothers.
The decision was passed down in an appeal lodged by the tots’ fathers, a gay couple who paid a surrogate to carry their little ones.
The unnamed men travelled to the US to start their family, with their twin sons born in California at the end of 2015.
When they returned to their home country with their babies, the first order of business was to register them as their legal children.
However, with surrogacy illegal in Italy, a clerk at the registry office refused to register the children as the couple’s legal children.
The couple brought their plight to the courts, seeking to be registered as the children’s parents.
When the judge at the first hearing ruled against them, the couple appealed the decision in a different court, in Milan.
Here, their request was partially granted: as the men used separate semen samples to fertilise each egg, it was ruled that each man can register their biological child as theirs; however, the court refused to recognise the babies as brothers.
The Washington Post spoke with a representative from Famiglie Arcobaleno, a non-governmental agency that worked with the couple. This rep praised the move as a major step forward for this couple and same-sex couples fighting for familial rights in the country.
“The children’s interest was to have a parent. Also, until now, the babies were only US citizens, but finally their fathers can pass their Italian citizenship to them,” the rep said.
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