Gay dads plan third child

Tony Barlow and Barrie Drewitt, the gay couple who made legal history in the UK last year by fathering surrogate twins, announced last week they are planning another child. The couple have 24 embryos stored from their first attempt, formed using eggs from an American donor and spermsperm from both men. 'The baby will be a biological brother or sister to Aspen or Saffron' said Mr Drewitt. A Californian woman has agreed to carry the baby - the men fell out with the surrogate mother who carried the twins following a row over fees.

Five-month-old twins Aspen and Saffron were conceived and born in the US, after adoption agencies in the UK said the couple were unsuitable parents. The US Supreme Court ruled the men could be named as parents on the birth certificate, but they have no parental rights in the UK. The Home Office granted the twins permission to remain indefinitely in Britain, but they are not British citizens. 'This time, we are thinking of having the baby in Britain so the baby would have citizenship' said Mr Barlow.

The couple's announcement has provoked criticism from family pressure groups and religious organisations. Valerie Riches, director of the Family and Youth Concern pressure group, said that children born to a homosexual couple will be living in 'an extremely unbalanced situation and for emotional and sexual development it will be bad for them'. But Mr Drewitt dismissed the critics, saying: 'People are bigoted because we're gay. Plenty of heterosexual people become parents by mistake and don't even want a child'.

Simon Jenkins, writing in The Times, called surrogacy and other fertility treatments 'liberating technologies', concluding that 'those who claim that only an enslaved woman can bring up a happy child are primitives - or hypocrites.'