(169) Parental rights and gay couples
Following the decision of Sheriff Laura Duncan in X v Y 2002 GWD 12-344 (see No 161 below) that a male sperm donor had parental rights over a child while the mother’s lesbian partner did not, although the child lived with the latter couple, Sheriff Noel McPartlin held in Edinburgh on 19 March 2002 that a lesbian couple, each of whom had a child (one from a previous marriage, the other by artificial insemination by anonymous donor), might each enjoy parental rights over the other’s child (Scotland on Sunday, 7 April 2002).