Adoption and Parenting

Today the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that non-biological, non-married, non-adoptive parents can seek custody and visitation of children who were born into their relationships with the consent of the child’s biological parent.

Discrimination against LGBTQ youth and families in child welfare systems across the country has scarred a process that purports to place the child’s best interests above all else.

Lambda Legal filed a motion for summary judgment in its federal lawsuit seeking an accurate birth certificate for the son of Chelsea and Jessamy Torres, a married lesbian couple, and other similarly situated same-sex couples in Wisconsin. Kyle Palazzolo, Staff Attorney for Lambda Legal, said:

Last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued a ruling that’s great news for same-sex couples (and all married couples) seeking to use assisted reproductive technology (ART) as part of their family planning. In Adoption of a Minor (brought by Patience Crozier of Kauffman Crozier LLP and supported by an Amicus brief developed by our friends and partners at GLAD in Boston and signed by Lambda Legal and a broad range of LGBT legal organizations, family law attorneys, and ART groups), the court unanimously clarified that a married same-sex couple are the sole legal parents of children born into their marriage using donated sperm and that they did not need to give notice to the donor before securing their parental rights through adoption.