FOUR years ago Pepijn Zwanenberg, a club DJ and a city-council member for the GreenLeft party in Utrecht, sat down with his boyfriend Ivo and their friend Janette to plan having a child together. They wrote a letter agreeing to make medical decisions by consensus, to live within cycling distance of each other and to enter mediation in case of quarrels. "Straight people often have kids by accident, or take it for granted. We thought about it much more seriously," says Mr Zwanenberg. Two years later Janette gave birth to their daughter Keet. All three consider themselves Keet's parents. But Ivo, who is not her biological father, has no legal connection to her. In the Netherlands, as almost everywhere else in the world, a child can have only two parents in the eyes of the law.
Dutch gay-rights groups and advocates for non-traditional families say this "rule of two" does not match the realities of modern-day parenting, and that the country should allow meervoudig...
The Economist: Europe
