Today, Lambda Legal argued before the New York State Court of Appeals on behalf of a non-biological mother after an intermediate appeals court denied her right to seek custody and visitation with, and provide financial support to the child she has parented with her former same-sex partner. ...

Lambda Legal represents Debra H. in her effort to continue to parent the son she and her former partner, Janice R., planned together. The couple agreed they would raise a family together in a two-parent household and conceived their son using in vitro fertilization. Janice promised that Debra would formally adopt their child, and they met with an adoption lawyer prior to their son's birth. In 2003, before he was born, they entered into a civil union in Vermont, which at that time was the most legally significant relationship available to same-sex couples under U.S. law. Debra was by Janice's side throughout labor and delivery and cut their son's umbilical cord; her last name was included in their son's name on his birth certificate. In the years that followed Debra gave him the day and night love, nurture and care of a mother. When it came time for the second-parent adoption, Janice, an attorney, advised Debra "as a lawyer" that they didn't need to get the courts involved and Debra would always be the boy's parent. When the couple's relationship ended in 2006, Debra continued actively to parent her son, who moved with Janice into an apartment only a block away. Debra and her son were together daily, and she often put him to bed.

In May of 2008, when the child was 4 ½ years old, Janice abruptly refused Debra any further contact with him. Debra immediately filed for emergency joint custody and restoration of parental access.

Labels: custody, de facto parenting, donor conception

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