Penny Zagarelou-Mackieson

Dr Penny Zagarelou-Mackieson delves into the minefield of issues and political interests associated with the seemingly mundane topic of birth certificates.

She outlines why a birth certificate is an important legal document of universal concern – because it is a person’s primary means of identification throughout their entire life with intergenerational significance for the identities of their offspring.

Penny highlights that for certain individuals, however – those who are adopted, donor-conceived, or born of surrogacy – governments treat the parentage information on their official birth certificate differently to most people’s.

In the case of adoptees, the original birth certificate is cancelled and replaced with a new birth certificate that records the name(s) of the adoptive parents – as if the adoptee were naturally born to them. Penny provides an extensive history of changes to birth registration requirements and birth certificates in Australia since compulsory birth registration was introduced there in 1838, demonstrating that the treatment of birth certificates in adoptions was designed last century for the purpose of secrecy. Increasingly, closed adoption practices were intended to prevent adoptees from knowing that they were adopted, the identities of their natural parents, and their own natural identity.

In the cases of those who are donor-conceived and born from surrogacy arrangements, the parentage information recorded on their official birth certificates is treated in a similarly deceptive manner through the application of legal presumptions and mechanisms of parentage – which are genetically/biologically incorrect. As in adoption, these practices promote secrecy and erasure of birth mothers.

Penny addresses several significant challenges and harms associated with the intentionally different treatment of parentage information on birth certificates; considers options to address those problems; and argues a case for birth certificate reform – with a view to achieving equal treatment of genetic/biological parentage information on all birth certificates regardless of the circumstances of one’s conception, birth or socio-legal parenting arrangements.

This book is an important read for people genuinely concerned about human rights, identity, birth mothers and equality.

4 AUGUST 2026 | 9781922964465 | Paperback | 152 × 228 mm | 270 pages

Penny Zagarelou-Mackieson

Dr Penny Zagarelou-Mackieson delves into the minefield of issues and political interests associated with the seemingly mundane topic of birth certificates.

She outlines why a birth certificate is an important legal document of universal concern – because it is a person’s primary means of identification throughout their entire life with intergenerational significance for the identities of their offspring.

Penny highlights that for certain individuals, however – those who are adopted, donor-conceived, or born of surrogacy – governments treat the parentage information on their official birth certificate differently to most people’s.

In the case of adoptees, the original birth certificate is cancelled and replaced with a new birth certificate that records the name(s) of the adoptive parents – as if the adoptee were naturally born to them. Penny provides an extensive history of changes to birth registration requirements and birth certificates in Australia since compulsory birth registration was introduced there in 1838, demonstrating that the treatment of birth certificates in adoptions was designed last century for the purpose of secrecy. Increasingly, closed adoption practices were intended to prevent adoptees from knowing that they were adopted, the identities of their natural parents, and their own natural identity.

In the cases of those who are donor-conceived and born from surrogacy arrangements, the parentage information recorded on their official birth certificates is treated in a similarly deceptive manner through the application of legal presumptions and mechanisms of parentage – which are genetically/biologically incorrect. As in adoption, these practices promote secrecy and erasure of birth mothers.

Penny addresses several significant challenges and harms associated with the intentionally different treatment of parentage information on birth certificates; considers options to address those problems; and argues a case for birth certificate reform – with a view to achieving equal treatment of genetic/biological parentage information on all birth certificates regardless of the circumstances of one’s conception, birth or socio-legal parenting arrangements.

This book is an important read for people genuinely concerned about human rights, identity, birth mothers and equality.

4 AUGUST 2026 | 9781922964465 | Paperback | 152 × 228 mm | 270 pages