New California statute protects nonbiological parents

Last Friday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the Protection of Parent-Child Relationships Act. This groundbreaking statute will solve a problem I wrote about last year in this post. Because federal law allows the mother and biological father of a child to sign a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity (VAP) that makes the man a legal parent, the following scenario is possible: Lesbian

Parentage not tied to marriage is better...but how to get lesbian couples to understand this?

The DC Gay and Lesbian Activist Alliance Forum noted last week that a married lesbian couple was told by Sibley Hospital in DC that they would have to present their marriage license to get both of their names on the birth certificate of the child that one of them gave birth to. After alerting members of the DC City Council who enacted parentage reform in 2009 (see here for more info on the law),

NY Times highlights family trees complicated by assisted reproduction

It's shaping up to be a banner week for the New York Times attention to LGBT families. Yesterday's paper edition included a front page article, "Who's on the Family Tree? Now It's Complicated."Jennifer Williams, a lesbian, gives birth to a child, Mallory, using donor sperm, so that her sister and brother-in-law, who could not conceive, can adopt the child. Williams has a partner and also has

Washington state enacts comprehensive parentage statute

Earlier this month, Washington state enacted a version of the Uniform Parentage Act that will recognize parentage in numerous family situations. The legislation is effective on July 22, 2011 and applies to all causes of actions filed after that date. Proposed legislation on surrogacy was withdrawn from the bill and is therefore not covered in this statute.The legislation explicitly encompasses

Nonbio mom, Sondra Shineovich, successful on remand from Oregon Court of Appeals

In 2009, I wrote extensively about the Oregon Court of Appeals ruling in Shineovich v. Kemp. The court held that the consent of a biological mother's same-sex partner to her insemination, with the intent to parent the resulting child, made the nonbio mom a legal parent. The court reviewed the state's statute making a husband the parent of a child born to his wife using donor insemination to

Focus in Iowa should be children of all lesbian couples -- not just those whose moms have married

Earlier this month, the Des Moines Register began an article as follows: "The next legal battle over gay rights in Iowa could come from a same-sex couple determined to have both their names listed on their child's birth certificate."Anyone who reads this blog knows I can get behind a demand like that, but there's a catch in this instance. The article describes litigation in Iowa that will affect

Delaware Supreme Court upholds de facto parent statute and upholds joint custody award

Two years ago, in an opinion I criticized extensively, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that a woman whose partner was a child's only legal parent (through adoption) lacked standing to obtain custody or visitation when the couple split up. In response to that decision, the Delaware legislature amended its definition of "parent" to include de facto parents, a move I praised as extensively as I had

Who are the parents of Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen?

Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen (d.o.b. 2/2/11) is the heir to folk music royalty. As the granddaughter of Loudon Wainwright III, Kate McGarrigle, and Leonard Cohen, she starts off life with songs -- and poetry -- in her blood. (By the way, I'm old enough to think of Rufus as the son of Loudon, rather than Loudon as the father of Rufus. As a folk music DJ in the early 1970's, I came of age

Two moms on Maryland birth certificates...not the victory it might sound like

Lambda Legal announced on Friday that Maryland has agreed to put the names of two women on a child's birth certificate if the women are married. That might sound good, but there's a lot wrong with it.Maryland has very bad law on parentage of the partner of a woman who gives birth. (Read my post on the relevant case here). Last year, supportive Maryland legislators were on track to enact a law

Wisconsin court leaves stand a parentage order for a nonbio mom but precludes such orders in the future

The most horrific part of last month's North Carolina Boseman v. Jarrell opinion against second-parent adoption was that it said the court that granted the adoption lacked "subject matter jurisdiction," which means that the order was void, along with all second-parent adoption orders, the moment it was granted. That wiped out every second-parent adoption in the state.Well, within days of that

Supreme Court lets stand New York ruling for Debra H.

I wrote extensively about the dreadful New York Court of Appeals decision last year that refused to recognize parentage of a nonbio mom based on the couple's creation of a two-parent family. That court did, however, find that Debra H. was the parent of the child born to Janice R. because the couple was in a Vermont civil union when the child was born. The fact that a child in New York has two

This child has two fathers....sort of...and this is not a story about gay dads

A California appeals court has provided us with yet another story of complex family life to which law must respond. The case is Citizens Business Bank v. Carrano. Doesn't sound like a family law case, does it? Turns out it's a case about inheritance, specifically about the terms of a trust. The law of wills, trusts, and estates is often really family law....it's just that someone is dead.In this

More conservative state supreme court judges could hurt LGBT family law

By now everyone knows that the three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for a retention election all lost their bids to remain on the court, the result of a coordinated, highly financed campaign to send a message against their vote for marriage equality. In a segment on Democracy Now this morning, Adam Skaggs of the Brennan Center for Justice puts the Iowa vote in the larger context of judicial

British Columbia Attorney General's White Paper proposes explicit recognition of three parents

Hats off to New Jersey lawyer Bill Singer for alerting me to the article in yesterday's Vancouver Sun on an aspect of family law reform under consideration in British Columbia. While the article focuses largely on the possibility of a child having three legal parents, the White Paper released by the province's Attorney General in July, proposing a complete overall of the Family Law Act, is much

Delaware court rules man who did not know his girlfriend would use his semen to get pregnant is not a legal parent

Biology is neither necessary nor sufficient to create a legal parent. A new Delaware Supreme Court case, Adams-Hall v. Adams, illustrates this point in an unusual context and gives food for lots of thought.Christine Adams-Hall and Robert Adams were in a sexual relationship. In November 2007, Christine told Robert she was pregnant with his child. She asked him for a semen sample, alleging that she

New York court fails the children of same-sex couples; don't be fooled by press reports to the contrary

Debra H. is the mother of her six-year-old son, a child she raised with Janice R,. her ex-partner who is the child's biological mother. So ruled the New York Court of Appeals today (and that's the highest court in NY, so their decision is final). For that reason, press reports, at least the early ones, refer to the opinion as expanding the rights of gay parents.Not so fast. What the court

New York draws line between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" children of lesbian couples. I want to throw up.

I confess that wanting to throw up is not a rationally sound or doctrinally astute reaction to a court ruling. I don't care. There is no other response I can have to today's ruling from the highest court in New York (the New York Court of Appeals) that a child born to a lesbian couple who are married or in a civil union has two parents while a child born to an unmarried/not unioned couple has one

Non-bio dad win in Colorado bodes well for non-bio moms

A Colorado Appeals Court ruled earlier this month that a man with a six-year father-child relationship was the child's parent for all legal purposes, including joint legal custody and visitation. Although it's not obvious that such a case would be a win for the children of lesbian couples, in fact the basis for the court's decision is applicable by analogy to the situation in which a non-bio

Michigan court finds nonbio mom a parent if evidence supports agreement with bio mom

Last month I blogged about Renee Harmon's efforts to maintain her relationship with the 10 year old girl and 7 year old twin boys born during her 19 year relationship with their biological mother, Tammy Davis. Well last week, Michigan Family Court Judge Kathleen McCarthy ruled that Renee will have the opportunity to prove that "an agreement was made to bring these children into this relationship

Maryland misses the chance to protect the children of same-sex couples

Two years ago, the highest court in Maryland ruled that the state did not recognize "de facto" parents. Thus, when a same-sex couple raises a child as two parents and then splits up, only the parent who gave birth to the child or adopted the child has the right to custody; the other parent is a legal stranger, no different from a relative, friend, or neighbor. The court's opinion invited the