Petition Parental Responsibility

Without Parental responsibility you do not have a legal say in your child's upbringing and while fathers are encouraged to take responsibility for their children the Children Act 1989 did not give unmarried fathers Parental Responsibility under the law. Although this aspect of the 1989 Children Act has now been repealed in the 2004 Children’s Act, it remains the case that fathers of children born before December 2003 still do not automatically have Parental Responsibility.

The government should now make an amendment and give retrospective Parental Responsibility to those fathers who were not given parental responsibility prior to December 2003.

It should not be necessary for a parent, in this case a father, to have to seek Parental Responsibility through the other parent or through the courts to have a responsibility for their child's health, religion and education.