Tell MPs not to erase mothers from law

Marriage between one man and one woman is the institution that anchors a child to their biological mother and father. It is the oldest and most universally celebrated arrangement. C4M exists to defend it. We are campaigning for the restoration of marriage – and the return of motherhood to the position of honour it should never have lost.

On 28 April, fashion entrepreneur Adam Frisby and his partner Jamie Corbett appeared on ITV’s This Morning. They recently brought back a baby girl from the United States, born through commercial surrogacy. Their petition asks Parliament to make intended parents legal parents from birth, removing the woman who carries and delivers the child as the child’s legal mother. It has passed 100,000 signatures, triggering consideration for a Westminster Hall debate.

The Law Commission proposed exactly this in 2023. The Government shelved it in 2025. The petition has forced the door open again, and the Government has yet to publish its written response.

Italy has criminalised overseas surrogacy. Greece has closed it to non-residents. Last October, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women described surrogacy as “characterized by exploitation and violence against women and children” and called for its global eradication. Britain is moving the opposite way: the only surrogacy debate Parliament is preparing for is on a petition to liberalise, not to restrict.

Parliament was warned in 2013. David Burrowes told the Commons that the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill “implies that the state now applies another meaning to marriage, which primarily involves the rights and values of adulthood rather than the rights and values of parenthood”. Parliament didn’t heed the warning. We are living the consequences.

Even the Peter Tatchell Foundation puts the logic plainly: “Because same-sex couples cannot have children without assistance, surrogacy is central to parenting equality for LGBT+ people.” Two men cannot conceive a child together. Two women cannot conceive a child together. To recognise their unions as marriage forces the law to redefine who counts as a parent – and from another direction, gender ideology demands the same. Both fronts converge on the same target: airbrushing the real mother out of the family.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UK in 1991, gave every child the right “to know and be cared for by his or her parents”. In its 1989 drafting context and in ordinary language, “parents” plainly meant the man and woman whose child he or she is. Modern lawyers now contest that meaning. C4M does not. A child’s right to their biological mother and father should not be undermined by the mere desire of adults.

In 2021, for the first time since records began in 1845, more children in England and Wales were born outside marriage than within. No Prime Minister since 2010 has publicly defended marriage between one man and one woman as a uniquely valuable institution. No Government department has ever issued statutory guidance affirming children’s right to be raised by both biological parents. Our country is being told, statute by statute, that children no longer need a mother and a father.

Enough is enough. C4M are calling on the Government and Parliament to restore real mothers to the centre of family law, restore fathers alongside them, and restore marriage between one man and one woman as the institution in which every child has a right to their biologicial parents. Mothers matter. Fathers matter. Children deserve both. A Westminster Hall debate is now being considered. Make the case to your MP now, before the date is set. https://www.writetothem.com