Massachusetts, a bellwether state for social change, has issued its first three-parent birth certificate.

Joyce Kauffman, a family law attorney, explained to the abovethelaw.com website that state courts already recognise three-parent family structures through adoption. But this is the first time that the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics (RVRS) has issued birth certificate which records three parents.

Ms Kauffman believes that this paves the way for other children to be registered with multiple parents. With increasing recognition of polyamory in the Bay State, there could be a real demand for multiple-parent certificates.

A revised version of the national uniform parentage act has been introduced to the Massachusetts legislature which purports to bring greater clarity and protection to the modern realities of family formation, especially those turning to assisted reproductive technology.

The LGBTQI+ lobby is actively promoting the proposed Massachusetts Parentage Act (MPA). According to Mombian, a site for lesbian parents, Massachusetts “is now the only New England state that has not comprehensively reformed its parentage laws to protect children regardless of the circumstances of their birth or the gender or marital status of their parents.”