ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on developments in relation to paternity, assisted reproduction and same-sex parenting. English law has enthusiastically embraced the principle of biological truth, qualified only in the context of paternity issues by considerations of the child's welfare. The government has taken a keen interest in procedures for establishing paternity though it is clear that this interest is derived as much, if not more, from the financial interest of the state than from any enthusiastic commitment to human rights. The right to acquire information at eighteen in the case of children of same-sex parents is a real right in the sense that they will be on notice that a third person must have been involved in their conception. The issue of the relative importance which should be attached to biological and social parenting relationships has surfaced again in relation to same-sex relationships.
