Single women and lesbian couples won landmark parental rights last night as MPs voted to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father.The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will replace the rule with a “need for supportive parenting” after opponents were defeated in two votes by unexpectedly wide margins.

The Government had been prepared for defeat but won the free votes by majorities of 75 and 68. The decisions mean that the legislation will grant the most significant extension to homosexual family rights since gay adoption was sanctioned.

It will stop fertility clinics turning away lesbians and single women because their children will not have a father or male role model. While the current law does not block such therapy, it is sometimes used to justify refusals.

Times Online

So in the once Great Britain fathers are no longer important in the shaping of a child’s life. They apparently have no value to the upbringing of a child despite various studies that have shown otherwise. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’ Connor also brought up a striking point in opposition to this travesty:

“I think it strange that the Government should want to take away not just the need for a father but the right for a father,” he said.

I implore everyone to take a good, hard look at what has become of what was at one time the most powerful and influential nation in the world because we are heading down the same path.

Rep. Vito Fossella, citing “personal mistakes” after a drunken driving arrest and disclosure he fathered a child in an extramarital affair, on Tuesday became the 27th Republican congressman to retire rather than face re-election this year.The New Yorker’s exit comes at a bad time for the Republicans, but staying could have made things worse. A socially conservative incumbent in a socially conservative party, the congressman’s personal baggage threatened to further weaken a listing GOP ship.AP

I think we’ll have a better shot to keep this seat without him now, rather than had he stayed. However, rest assured the Democrats will put a lot of money into this one. This is the only Congressional district in New York City that the GOP holds.