Colombia court allows lesbian adoption

AFP.com, AUgust 29, 2014

Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a lesbian woman could adopt her long-time partner’s daughter, though the ruling does not apply to gay adoption in all circumstances.

Ana Leiderman appealed to the court to let her partner, Veronica Botero, adopt her biological daughter after the Colombian Family Well-being Institute rejected Botero’s adoption application.

With six votes for and three abstentions, the court ruled that Leiderman, who underwent artificial insemination to conceive her daughter and raised her together with Botero, had the right to request an adoption by her partner regardless of sex.

“The court considered that the discriminatory criterion the administrative authority had used to deny the adoption procedure… was unacceptable in this case, which involves a consensual adoption in which the biological father or mother consents to an adoption by his or her permanent partner,” said chief justice Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva.

The ruling sets a precedent for all similar cases in the South American country, but will not apply to gay couples seeking to adopt if neither person is the child’s biological parent.

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