section_path: Adoption and parenting
section_name: Adoption and parenting
paragraph_text: Adoption and parenting
  
  On 1 January 2016, during his annual New Year's Day interview, Prince Hans-Adam II announced his opposition to allowing same-sex couples to adopt children.
  
  In September 2019, the State Court ordered the Liechtenstein Government to look into the legalisation of stepchild adoption for civil partners. On 15 June 2021, the State Court of Liechtenstein ruled that registered partners should have the right to adopt, and invalidated the sections of the 2011 partnership law which had forbidden such adoptions. It gave Parliament one year to rectify the issue. Following the court decision, the government drafted a bill granting same-sex couples the right to adopt their stepchildren (i.e. stepchild adoption), which was passed on 6 May 2022. On that same day, Parliament narrowly rejected an amendment that would have excluded same-sex couples from joint adoption and procedures for reproductive medicine for those in registered partnerships.
  
  After a consultation period lasting from 6 July to 30 September 2022, the government passed a motion on full adoption equality for same-sex couples on 31 October 2022. The proposal was discussed in its 1st reading in the Landtag on 2 December 2022 and was passed in a 22 to 3 vote.
  
  On 2 March 2023, the proposal was discussed and passed in its 2nd reading. A motion to have the proposed legislation go into effect at an earlier date was defeated with only 8 votes in favor. The legislation was issued in the National Legal Gazette (Liechtensteinisches Landesgesetzblatt) on 25 April 2023 and went into effect on 1 June 2023.