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France 24
France 24
Politics
Lara BULLENS

‘Ghost parents’: Same-sex couples in Italy are losing their rights

A woman wears a t-shirt from LGBTQ organisation Famiglie Arcobaleno that reads: "Love makes a family" and holds a baby during a protest against the Italian government's decision to restrict the rights of same-sex parents in Milan on March 18, 2023. © Gabriel Bouys, AFP

Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has demanded local councils only list biological parents on birth certificates, flinging hundreds of same-sex couples into a legal morass.  

Last year, Denise Rinehart and Giulia Garofalo Geymonat’s six-year-old son was rushed from his school in Bologna, Italy to a nearby hospital with a life-threatening allergic reaction. In a panic, the two mothers scrambled to the emergency services to find their son. He had gone into anaphylactic shock. As healthcare personnel treated him, one nurse turned to Geymonat and asked: “Who are you?” The question fell on her like a tonne of bricks.  

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