Lesbomaternal families: Court accepts lawsuit and orders the Civil Registry to recognize a woman as a second mother

The Family Court of Talcahuano accepted the claim of maternity filed by the biological mother of a child, ordering the Civil Registry to incorporate her partner as a second mother.
In the ruling, Judge Andrea Caro Vargas analyzed the concept of family, understanding it as dynamic and dependent on social, cultural and regional variables, without a categorical definition in Chilean and international legislation, establishing that the biological mother, who underwent assisted reproduction, her partner and child make up a family, so they must be given recognition and protection.
“Now in the face of no categorical definition of what should be understood by family, we must ask ourselves what makes a family family? In this regard there is no doubt that a main and common element to be considered a family is the existence in them of an ‘affective bond’ that unites them and a ‘common project of life’, so it is necessary the existence of significant bonds without the need to have a blood link but even a sense of belonging and shared experiences on the occasion of that common project”, the magistrate reasons in the ruling.
The resolution adds that “there is no doubt to this sentencer that (both women) and their son constitute a family, united by a strong affective bond, inserted in two family groups … who recognize them as such and also with a child who at only 4 years old feels an integral part of this family made up of two women whom he recognizes as mothers with full normality”.
Likewise, the judgment states the provisions of article 182 of Law 19,585, which recognizes filiation through assisted reproduction techniques (in relation to a father and a mother), extending it to the case.
“To this end and in order to be able to apply the aforementioned legal norm to the present case, it seems necessary to carry out a more integrative analysis of said legal norm with the international conventions signed by our country and the existing jurisprudence and doctrine that deal with or regulate principles of family law, even more so if we consider that they have undoubtedly progressively become a recognition of a broad concept of family not only to heterosexuals not being able to pigeonhole in a certain gender the quality of father or mother, “explains the ruling.
Therefore, for Caro, to decide otherwise would be to go against a series of rights of the child, such as the right to identity; the right to the family; the best interests of the child and the equality of children, as enshrined in article 33 of the Civil Code.

Original source in Spanish