The Archbishop of York has spoken out against Government plans to make it easier for lesbian couples to become parents through IVF.
The Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill includes provisions to recognise a lesbian couple as a child's legal parents and removes the legal requirement to consider the child's "need for a father".
The Archbishop, Dr John Sentamu, told the House of Lords: "The right of a prospective parent to have a child by any means necessary must not triumph over the welfare of children brought into the world."
He added: "The child's right not to be deliberately deprived of a father is greater than any right to commission a child by IVF."
The Archbishop led a number of Peers in urging the Government to drop the plans.
Baroness Williams of Crosby warned: "Unless we give men a full sense of what it is to be a father, a member of a family, and a proud and in many ways very rich potential, we will simply find ourselves with more and more dysfunctional families.
"I strongly recommend to this House that we think very carefully about taking a step that looks trivial but could be serious in changing the atmosphere and the attitude towards fatherhood."
The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will expect Labour MPs and Peers to vote in favour of the controversial proposals, though Labour MP Geraldine Smith has told The Daily Telegraph she plans to defy Labour whips and vote against the Government.
Miss Smith, whose Commons amendment opposing the plans was signed by over 40 other MPs, said: "Can you imagine a child who has a birth certificate with two females as mother and father? It's nonsense. It's madness."
RTF