Hi, I hope someone here can explain the reasoning in the change to the parental responsibility status of fathers who are not on the birth certificate. I don't really understand the reasons for fathers not automatically having this.

Believe me I have no axe to grind, this is a simple question stemming from an essay I have just finished. It just struck me as odd that this change was made - of course I am sure I am missing a huge obvious piece of the puzzle here, so can anyone help explain this to a very stressed student?  

Thanks

As I understand matters there has not been any change to 'exclude' unmarried fathers whose names are not on the birth certificate. The change has been to 'include' them automatically from a few years ago.

The issue does relate to unmarried fathers who opreviously had to either apply for 'parental responsibility' or obtain it by agreement from the mother. It is now considered by most people to be right that if named on the birth certificate that they now have 'pr' as a right.

I see, thanks, I thought that previously unmarried fathers had pr even if they were not on the birth certificate, I couldn't understand why they no longer did.

Guess I got it wrong again :)