Response to Chapter 2: Legal Parenthood and Birth Registration: Time to Respond to Diversity in Family Formation?

Birth registration may seem like a mundane administrative procedure. Routine and, for many, unremarkable. Yet, like childbirth itself, and as the authors of this law reform proposal explain, birth registration is simultaneously vitally personal and deeply political. It is a compulsory state procedure for births in the United Kingdom (UK), with official integration into the country typically necessitating birth registration documentation from elsewhere. Birth registration is therefore singular in this collection of law-reform proposals for its universal relevance. Birth registration is also the first step in establishing a person’s identity for various legal and administrative processes; ones that facilitate access to essential state and societal infrastructure (eg, identity documentation, public healthcare and education, access to social security entitlements, immigration procedures). Given this coercive power, combined with the fact that birth registration records personal details in a publicly accessible register, it is crucial that the birth registration system is fit for purpose and serves the needs of contemporary society. As scholars of civil registration have observed, registration systems only operate effectively when the populace buys into them due to a mutual exchange with the state, that is formal state recognition in return for legal entitlements and benefits. That the birth registration system is coming under increasing challenges from the population, including legal challenges, should be concerning to the Government. Birth registration is therefore a highly important issue to have included in this law-reform collection.

There is much to learn from Craig Lind, Philip Bremner, and Maria Moscati’s proposal. Each time I think about it, another lightbulb flickers. Most of my lightbulbs have been about the supplementary register, but I start my response by discussing the core register dimension of the proposal, and then by offering some general observations about conducting a law-reform project on birth registration.