Children of two mothers, the Viminale insists: no registration of the intended mother

On children with two mothers, the Ministry of the Interior resists. The Consulta's ruling no. 68/2025 of 22 May, which declared unconstitutional the ban on the intentional mother recognising as her own the child born abroad through assisted procreation, has so far not convinced the Viminale to change its line of defence in the dispute with the mayor of Padua, Sergio Giordani, who since 2017 has registered 53 registry acts with double surnames.

At the Venice Court of Civil Appeals, where the case of 33 children, the children of two mothers and born with Pma outside Italy after the green disk received in March 2024 by the court of Padua, is being discussed, the Venetian public prosecutor's office has withdrawn its appeals against the registry acts as a result of the decision of the constitutional judges. Not so did the Avvocatura dello Stato that, on behalf of the ministry led by Matteo Piantedosi, in fact confirmed the request to cancel the surname of the intended mother from the registry office.

The querelle dates back to March 2023, when Piantedosi, in a circular letter, had requested that mayors stop registering the children of homogenous couples at the registry office, referring in an extensive sense to the ruling of the United Sections of the Supreme Court of Cassation no. 38162. 38162: with that verdict, deposited on 30 December 2022, the Supreme Judges had ruled that, in a case concerning a male couple who had resorted to gestation by others (and therefore not to Planned Parenthood), only the biological father, i.e. the sperm donor, could be registered as a parent. The Prosecutor's Office of Padua had therefore immediately moved to challenge the birth certificates of 33 children, children of two mothers and born with heterologous fertilisation.

At the hearing in Venice on Monday, the Avvocatura dello Stato explained that no indications had come from the Viminale after the Constitutional Court's ruling. Consequently, the Attorney General's Office limited itself to reporting the defence deductions already made, referring the assessment of the concrete cases submitted to the Court of Appeal itself to the panel of judges. The Venice judges' decision is expected in the coming weeks. The bitter comment of Susanna Lollini, lawyer of one of the mothers' couples in Padua, was: "All we can say is that in the face of the obstinacy of the Advocacy, which evidently does not understand the difference between the Constitutional Court's rulings and the Ministry's indications, the condemnation to pay the costs would be the least we could expect".