Quito, Ecuador, May 22, 2012 / 15:06 pm
Temporarily ending a heated debate over the legal recognition of a British lesbian couple as “father and mother” of a baby girl, a judge in Ecuador ruled on May 22 that only the biological mother can be affirmed as a legal parent.
The baby girl, Satya Amani, was born in Ecuador to Nicola Susan Rothon by artificial insemination. Rothon lives in Quito –Ecuador’s capital – with Helen Louis Bicknell. Both are British citizens who legalized their union as a same sex “marriage” in England in 2010.
Last December, with the support of international Gay and Lesbian organizations, the couple sued Ecuador’s Civil Registry, demanding the right to register Satya Amani under both last names.
In Ecuador, as in most Latin American countries, children are legally registered under the father’s and mother’s last names, in that order.