Hammering out the law on these cases will keep the Lawyers and courts busy, and provide people for Jerry Springer.
Calif. Lesbian Mom Has No Parental Rights
DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - A woman has no parental rights over the twins she was raising with her lesbian partner - even though she is the childrens' genetic mother, an appeals court ruled.
Upholding a lower court ruling, the 1st District Court of Appeal decided only the woman's partner - who gave birth to the twins after artificial insemination with eggs provided by her lover - has full parental rights.
The court said though the genetic mother was a loving, at-home parent, "functioning as a parent does not bestow legal status as a parent."
"An adoption decree would provide objective, formalized proof of the parties' parentage intentions," the court said.
The case is expected to be appealed to the California Supreme Court, but underscores that laws dealing with parental rights for gay or lesbian couples are largely unmapped territory.
The woman suing for parental rights - identified in court papers as K.M. - never sought to adopt the now-8-year-old twins, who live with their birth mother in Massachusetts. Her attorney, Jill Hersh, said her client "didn't adopt because she was the biological mother. She didn't think she had to.
"The legal system hasn't caught up with the modern-day facts of this case," Hersch said.
Diana Richmond, the attorney for the birth mother, praised the decision, saying it "beautifully upholds the freedom of choice of same-sex partners on whether both partners will or will not be the parents."
She said the women "had agreed that only one of them will be the parent."
"They never agreed to an adoption and no adoption proceedings were initiated," Richmond said.
Shannon Minter, an attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said if the genetic mother was a man, she would have been awarded rights to the children, pointing to a 2002 California Supreme Court decision granting a non-biological father rights to a child he helped rear.
"These children are going to be just as hurt as anybody else would by losing a parent," Minter said. "Regardless of being married or not, if K.M. was a man, she would have been automatically, without question, a legal parent." |
