As you may know, DLO strongly encourages the non-biological parent in a two-parent relationship to adopt their child even if the couple is married and the non-bio parent is on the birth certificate. Davis wrote a great post about it here. Emily participated in a Facebook Live presentation for the Queer Birth Project here.
In a nutshell, the presumption of parentage is deeply gendered, and it is rebuttable. What’s more, even in “traditional” male-female parentage couples, simply being listed on a birth certificate isn’t sufficient to legally establish the parent-child relationship. Then there’s the additional issue that “we don’t know what’s going to happen in the law given the current political climate.”
Take a look at this article about the most recent ruling from the Arkansas Supreme Court. Arkansas’s highest court recently ruled that the state can legally refuse to list the non-birth parent’s name on the birth certificate of a child born to a lesbian couple.
We’ll continue to hope for the best. But in the meantime, we suggest everyone prepare as much as they can. Take all the steps you can to affirmatively establish and protect your legal rights with respect to your family. We’re here to help, so let us know if you have any questions about what that might look like for you, and we’ll schedule you for a free consultation.