Sabatauskaitė says family referendum lacks clear aims and divides society

Lithuania’s equal opportunities ombudsperson, Birutė Sabatauskaitė, says the aims of a proposed referendum on the definition of family are unclear and that it would deepen divisions. She made the comments in an interview with LRT’s Savaitė programme.

The advisory referendum, sought by the Farmers in the governing coalition, would ask whether legal family relations arise only from a man and woman’s marriage, motherhood and fatherhood. Sabatauskaitė said the proposal’s goals had not been clearly stated and questioned whether a majority should decide which families count as “real”.

She also discussed a law on assisted reproduction recently passed by the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament. Sabatauskaitė said the law was about more than medical treatment: it recognised adults’ freedom to plan their family lives, whether or not they were married or in a partnership, and extended that choice to single women.

The Constitutional Court had ruled that the previous law was unconstitutional insofar as it limited access to the service, and especially reimbursement, to people who were married, she said. Sabatauskaitė welcomed the Seimas’s decision to pass a broader law.

Responding to critics who argue that children have a right to both a mother and a father, Sabatauskaitė said children’s rights should include the ability to grow up feeling safe and accepted. She pointed to nearly 40,000 people who, she said, do not pay child maintenance, leaving mothers to support the children while the state seeks to recover millions of euros in unpaid sums.

Sabatauskaitė said the debate should focus on creating a safe environment for children growing up in different kinds of families. The Constitution, she noted, already gives priority attention to the family as the foundation of the state and society.