For the first time in Italy a child was legally recognized as the child of three parents: his biological mother and the two men who have raised him since birth. The decision is contained in a ruling of the Court of Appeal of Bariissued in January 2026 and now definitive, which authorized the transcription in Italy of an adoption order pronounced in Germany. This is a story destined to cause discussion, not only on a legal level but also cultural and anthropologicalbecause it introduces a precedent of “multiple parenthood” into our system: a minor with three parental figures officially recognized by the State.
The story
The child is now four years old and was born in Germany. The biological father has lived with his partner, an Italian-German citizen, for over ten years. The mother is a long-time friend of theirs, already the mother of other children. According to what was reconstructed in the documents, the child was conceived through a natural relationship and not through surrogate motherhood, a practice prohibited in both Italy and Germany. At birth the baby was recognized by the mother who gave birth to him and by his biological father. Subsequently, the biological father’s husband started the adoption procedure for the partner’s child in Germany, which German legislation also allows for homosexual couples. The German judge accepted the request, without destroying the minor’s legal bond with the biological mother. In this way the child legally became the child of three people.
At that point, the two fathers then asked that the German adoption, and therefore the certification that the child has three parents, be transcribed also in Italy, in the Apulian municipality where the second Italian-German father is registered in the registry of Italians residing abroad. However, the Municipality denied the registration, believing that there could be a “hidden” surrogacy practice behind the adoption. And the case ended up before the Court of Appeal of Bari.
The judges’ motivations
In the proceedings the appellants, assisted by the lawyer Easter Manfredi of the Rete Lenford association, which assists and protects LGBTQ+ people, have documented the absence of any “gestational pact” or form of pregnancy for others. The report from the German social services was also decisive, in which it was stated that the child has lived permanently with the two men since birth, in a family climate defined as “serene”, while at the same time maintaining emotional relationships with his biological mother and his maternal siblings.
The Court of Appeal therefore deemed the German adoption provision compatible with Italian law, implicitly recalling the institution of adoption in particular cases, which in our system allows you to add a parental bond without canceling the biological one. According to the judges, the decisive element was the “best interests of the minor”, a principle now central to European and Italian family law.
Because the sentence is considered historic
The Bari decision represents a significant precedent because it opens up the possibility of recognizing forms of co-parenting not based either on traditional marriage or exclusively on same-sex couples, but on a project shared between several adults.
Lawyer Manfredi spoke explicitly about “shared parenthood” and “extended family”, underlining that the case would be different from surrogate motherhood precisely because the biological mother continues to maintain a role in the child’s life. In Germany, where childbearing for others is prohibited, similar situations are sometimes traced back to forms of agreed co-parenting.
The open problem nodes
Precisely here, however, the most delicate questions emerge, especially from an anthropological and ethical point of view. If, on the one hand, in this case there is, fortunately, no practice of renting a womb, which provides a monetary compensation to the woman who gives birth to the child for others, on the other, the sentence raises profound questions about the very idea of family and filiation.
The Christian tradition and the teaching of the Church consider parenthood linked to the complementarity between man and woman and see in the child not the result of a project between adults, but a gift that arises from a stable relationship open to life. In this sense, the possibility of planning “plural parenthood” risks accentuating a contractual vision of filiation, in which the desire of adults prevails over the original structure of the family.
Another problematic element concerns the increasingly thin border between these forms of co-parenting and surrogate motherhood. In this case the Court excluded any GPA, but the fear expressed by many jurists is that an alternative path could be created to obtain recognition of family models that the Italian legislator has never explicitly regulated. Then there is the issue of the rights of the child. The sentence insists on the best interests of the minor, but the question remains open as to what this means in concrete terms: is emotional stability enough? Or does the right of the minor also include the symbolic and real reference to clearly defined motherhood and fatherhood?
No less important is the cultural profile. The Bari affair seems to mark the transition from a conception of the family based mainly on biological and marital ties to a conception centered on emotional relationships and the consent of the adults involved. A change that also challenges the Italian legislator, who has so far remained cautious on these issues.
A debate destined to grow
This ruling obviously does not automatically change Italian law, but it introduces a precedent that could influence future judicial decisions. In recent years, in fact, various Italian and European rulings have progressively expanded the recognition of homo-parental families and so-called “intentional” figures. However, a decisive question remains open: to what extent can the law redefine parenthood without changing the very idea of family?
