In January 2019, the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, announced that the government had published a bill that would amend the "Civil Registration Act 2004" and allow lesbian couples who have had donor-assisted children in an Irish fertility clinic to register as their parents. Under the changes, parents may choose the labels "mother" and "father" or instead the term "parents", meaning that the non-biological mother would be able to legally register as a co-parent. It passed the Daíl in March 2019, and the Seanad in May 2019. The "Civil Registration Act 2019" () was signed into law by President Michael D. Higgins on 23 May 2019, which is the fourth anniversary of the same-sex marriage referendum. It came into effect immediately. This legislation does not apply to Irish lesbian couples who have had donor-assisted children abroad or who have used reciprocal IVF (where one mother gives the eggs and the other mother carries the pregnancy; the non-birth mother is actually the biological mother). In these two cases, the couple must generally complete an adoption process. LGBT activist Ranae von Meding has two daughters with her wife Audrey through reciprocal IVF. She has been lobbying for legislation which would recognise all families regardless of how or where the child was conceived. Von Meding has started a petition on Uplift.ie which as of early September 2019 had received over 22,000 signatures in support. The "Irish Independent" reported in November 2019 that a fertility clinic in Dublin was offering reciprocal IVF services to lesbian couples.