The Daily Mail has recently reported on the surprising news that The Saturdays stunner, Una Healy and her England Rugby playing boyfriend, Ben Foden are expecting a baby. The couple are not married, however there have been rumours in the past that Ben has wanted to propose to Una and have lots of babies together. Everything seems to be a dream come true for the loved-up couple, however we know only too well that celebrity couples can experience their fair share of relationship breakdowns. So the question of today’s article is will Ben Foden have Parental Responsibility for his new born baby and what actually does it mean? The actual definition of parental responsibility is as follows: “all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property”. In reality therefore this simply means that the parent has responsibility for making all of the significant decisions in their child’s life as well as the day-to-day decisions in relation to their well being. This includes decisions relating to their child’s diet and activities, and also the more important decisions relating to education, religious upbringing and medical care. Una will have parental responsibility as the mother will always automatically have it for their child; however this is not always necessarily the case for fathers. If Ben does decide to propose and he ends up marrying Una then he will automatically have parental responsibility so that it is shared jointly. Even if everything is not all rosy and they eventually divorce, Ben will still keep his parental responsibility. If they don’t decide to get married then Ben will only have parental responsibility if he is named as the father on the child’s birth certificate. This is only because the child will have been born after the 1st December 2003. Ben could also obtain parental responsibility if he applies to court for an order or if he gets Una’s agreement and they both sign a parental responsibility agreement. Personally the more interesting question will be whether The Saturdays split up because of Una’s pregnancy?
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