Birth of Three-Parent Baby a Success for Controversial Procedure

A few months ago, after a fertility procedure at a Mexican clinic, a healthy baby boy was born in New York to a couple from Jordan. It was the first live birth of a child who has been called — to the dismay of scientists who say the term is grossly misleading — a three-parent baby.

“This is huge,” said Dr. Richard J. Paulson, president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, after the birth was reported on Tuesday of a three-parent baby.

The method used to help the couple is one that reproductive scientists have been itching to try, but it is enormously controversial because it uses genetic material from a donor in addition to that of the couple trying to conceive. The purpose is to overcome flaws in a parent’s mitochondria that can cause grave illnesses in babies.three-parent baby

Mitochondria, the cell’s energy factories, are separate from the DNA that determines a child’s inherited traits. But mutations in these little organelles can be devastating, resulting in fatal diseases involving the nerves, muscles, brain, heart, liver, skeletal muscles, kidney and the endocrine and respiratory systems that often kill babies in the first few years of life.

The technique that led to the healthy birth was to move the DNA from an egg of the mother, who had mutated mitochondria, and place it in the egg of a healthy egg donor — after first removing the healthy donor’s nuclear DNA from her egg cell. Then that egg, with its healthy mitochondria and the mother’s DNA, could be fertilized.

More than a decade ago — before controversy forced the work to stop — researchers tried a simpler technique that did not involve swapping nuclei between eggs. Instead, they injected some healthy mitochondria into an egg in an attempt to help with repeated failures at in vitro fertilization. It was not a method that could be used to prevent the birth of children with mitochondrial diseases.

The story of the Jordanian couple’s procedure began in 2011 when they came to see Dr. James Grifo, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University who pioneered the method in studies with mice. He referred them to his former student Dr. John Zhang, medical director of the New Hope Fertility Center in New York. Dr. Zhang had tried the method in 2003 in China, but the 30-year-old woman’s twins were born prematurely and died, though their mitochondria were normal.

When Dr. Zhang told the Jordanian couple about the technique, they hesitated. They already had a child who was terribly ill with Leigh syndrome, a mitochondrial disease, but there was a chance they could have a normal baby on their own — a quarter of the woman’s mitochondria were mutated, but mitochondria are distributed at random in eggs. If an egg with mostly good mitochondria happened to be fertilized, the baby would be fine. They decided to take their chances.

New York Times, by Gina Kolata – September 27, 2016

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in Assisted Reproductive Technology / Ethics / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

The Most Detailed Map of Same-sex Married Couples in America

More than three years after a Supreme Court decision gave federal recognition to same-sex marriages performed in states that allowed them, the demographics of same-sex married couples largely remain a mystery.

In fact, no one has a definitive count of same-sex married couples in the United States.

One reason it’s hard to get a fix on the marriages is that detailed marriage records are not tracked at the federal level. They’re managed by counties and states, which report the count of marriages and not much else. The Census Bureau isn’t always a lot of help either. Methodological problems like sample size and false positives have long plagued census estimates of this relatively small group.

But a new research paper published by the Treasury Department on Monday has found an interesting way around these problems: tax records.marriage equality

By linking the tax returns of same-sex couples who filed jointly in 2014 with their Social Security records, researchers are able to give us the most accurate picture of same-sex marriages to date. And their estimate is this: In 2014 there were 183,280. same-sex marriages in America, roughly a third of 1 percent of all marriages.

Of course, implicit in this estimate is the assumption that all married couples file their returns jointly. But as a proxy for that, it’s pretty good. The Treasury Department estimates that 97.5 percent of married couples file joint returns.

One highlight of the study: Pretax household income of same-sex married couples is higher than that of heterosexual married couples. Most of that is driven by the average earnings of male same-sex couples: $176,000. On average, they make $52,000 more than married lesbian couples and $63,000 more than married straight couples.

Lee Badgett, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said one reason is the gender pay gap. The math here is simple — for heterosexual couples, the gender pay gap affects one partner. For same-sex female couples, the gender pay gap affects both partners.

But that doesn’t explain why same-sex female married couples earn more than heterosexual married couples, over all. The other key component is geography. The tax data shows same-sex married couples clustering along the coasts, and in urban pockets across the United States. These are regions that also tend to have higher wages. In fact, heterosexual couples actually earn more than same-sex female ones when you compare married couples who live in the same three-digit ZIP code region.

Child care plays a huge role as well. Same-sex female couples are four times more likely to have children than same-sex male couples. That means that many women will have to make tough trade-offs between career and family. Combine that with the likelihood of lower pay to begin with and you start to understand why the income differences are so large.

New York Times, September 12, 2016 by Quoctrung Bui

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New York state court rules non-biological, non-adoptive parents can seek custody, visitation if couple breaks up

ALBANY — In a major ruling for same-sex and other non-traditional couples, the state’s top court Tuesday ruled that non-biological or adoptive parents can seek visitation and custody if a couple breaks up.

Until now, the courts have held that non-biological and non-adoptive parents have no legal standing when it comes to parenting.

But the Court of Appeals changed that in a landmark ruling on Tuesday morning, overturning its own 1991 decision known as Alison D. v. Virginia M. that restricted the definition of a parent to someone with biological or adoptive connections.

lesbian family law

In the new decision, the court noted the 1991 ruling came 20 years before New York allowed gay couples to wed.

“We agree that, in light of more recently delineated legal principles, the definition of ‘parent’ established by this Court 25 years ago in Alison D. has become unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships,” Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam wrote in the decision.

“Accordingly, today, we overrule Alison D. and hold that where a partner shows by clear and convincing evidence that the parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together, the non-biological, non-adoptive partner has standing to seek visitation and custody.”

While acknowledging it’s rare for the court to change one of its previous decisions, the judges found that the 1991 Court of Appeals ruling limiting the legal definition of parents to those with a biological or adoptive relationship “has inflicted disproportionate hardship on the growing number of nontraditional families across our State.”

The decision does not guarantee that someone with no biological or adoptive link to a child can win visitation. That ultimately will be decided on a case-by-case basis by the courts based on what is determined to be in the best interest of the child.

by Kenneth Lovett, New York Daily News, August 30, 2016

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in Legal / Recently Added / Second Parent Adoption / Step Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 2 comments

New Study Shows No Differences in Family Relationships or Child Health Outcomes between Same-sex and Different-sex Parent Households

New Study Shows No Differences in Family Relationships or Child Health Outcomes between Same-sex and Different-sex Parent Households

LOS ANGELES — Households with same-sex parents show no differences from those with different-sex parents with regard to spouse or partner relationships, parent-child relationships, or children’s general health, emotional difficulties, coping and learning behavior, according to a new report by researchers affiliated with the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, the University of Amsterdam and Columbia University.

“This study is the first to use a nationally representative survey to compare the two types of households by focusing only on those with parents that have been in a continuous relationship,” said lead author Henny Bos, Ph.D.gay parents adoption

The study, titled “Same-sex and Different-sex Parent Households and Child Health Outcomes: Findings from the National Survey of Children’s Health,” compared family relationships, parenting stress and child outcomes in households with female same-sex parents versus different-sex parents.

Ninety-five same-sex parent households were matched to 95 different-sex parent households on eight demographic characteristics – parental age, education, U.S. birth status, and current geographic location, and the studied child’s age, gender, race/ethnicity, and U.S. birth status.

Although the study found no differences in family relationships and child outcomes, same-sex parents reported more parenting stress.

“Future investigations might explore whether the cultural spotlight on child outcomes in same-sex parent families is associated with increased parenting stress,” said psychiatrist and co-author Nanette Gartrell, MD, Visiting Scholar at the Williams Institute. “Some of our earlier studies have shown that lesbian mothers feel pressured to justify the quality of their parenting because of their sexual orientation.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Nanette Gartrell, MD – The Williams Institute

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Gay and Lesbian High School Students Report ‘Heartbreaking’ Levels of Violence

The first nationwide study to ask high school students about their sexuality found that gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers are at far greater risk for depression, bullying and many types of violence than their straight peers.

“I found the numbers heartbreaking,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes a division that administered the survey.gay hate

The survey documents what smaller studies have suggested for years, but it is significant because it is the first time the federal government’s biannual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the gold-standard of adolescent health data collection, looked at sexual identity. The survey found that about 8 percent of the high school population describe themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, which would be 1.3 million students

These children were three times more likely than straight students to have been raped. They skipped school far more often because they did not feel safe: at least a third had been bullied on school property. And they were twice as likely as heterosexual students to have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property

More than 40 percent of these students reported they had seriously considered suicide, and 29 percent had made attempts in the year before they took the survey. The percentage of those who use various illegal drugs was many times greater than heterosexual peers. While 1.3 percent of straight students said they had used heroin, for example, 6 percent of the gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported having done so.

New York Times, August 11,2016 By Jan Hoffman

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Same-Sex Parents Still Face Obstacles Under New York’s Standing Rules

Prior to the tragic events of Sunday, June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida, one might have felt optimistic about the evolving societal acceptance of and respect for same-sex parents and the corresponding progressive state of family and matrimonial law.

We shared in the sense of uplift from the recent United States Supreme Court decisions in United States v. Windsor and, especially, in Obergefell. v. Hodges, decided a little over one year ago on June 26, 2015. Obergefell dealt in sweeping fashion with discriminatory and unconstitutional objections to marriage for same-sex couples. As set forth in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s dramatic and moving language, the need for same-sex parents, and the children of those relationships, to be granted the social dignity and the many societal benefits that go along with stepping into the light of mainstream acceptance by virtue of a nationwide right to marry is required by the equal protection mandates of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.gay parents adoption

In concluding that its “analysis compels the conclusion that same-sex couples may exercise the right to marry,” 576 U.S. 12 (2015), the Supreme Court in Obergefell detailed not just the importance of being able to enter the institution of marriage, but the need for same-sex couples to do so on fully equal footing as other couples, through the front door, and stressed in its exhaustive analysis that the focus should not be on how these couples love, but that they love and wish for that love to be reflected in their social standing.

Choices about marriage shape an individual’s destiny. As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has explained, because “it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition. Goodridge, 440 Mass., at 322, 798 N.E. 2d at 955″ cited at 576 U.S. 13 (2015).

As this court held in Lawrence, same sex couples have the same right as opposite-sex couples to enjoy intimate association. Lawrence invalidated laws that made same-sex intimacy a criminal act. And it acknowledged that “[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. 539 U.S. at 567. But while Lawrence confirmed a dimension of freedom that allows individuals to engage in intimate association without criminal liability, it does not follow that freedom stops there. Outlaw to outcast may be a step forward, but it does not achieve the full promise of liberty.

576 U.S. at 14.

Further, Justice Kennedy singled out the importance of the right to marry to the children of these relationships.

Excluding same sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families to be somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.

576 at U.S. 15.

In New York, the passage of the Marriage Equality Act in 2011 directed that all of the laws, benefits and obligations bestowed by the Domestic Relations Law with regard to marriage be read and implemented without regard to sexual orientation, and, if necessary to do that, in a gender neutral way.

Section 10-a. Parties to a marriage.

1. A marriage that is otherwise valid shall be valid regardless of whether the parties to the marriage are of the same or different sex.

2. No government treatment or legal status, effect, right, benefit, privilege, protection or responsibility relating to marriage, whether deriving from statute, administrative or court rule, public policy, common law or any other source of law, shall differ based on the parties to the marriage being or having been of the same sex rather than a different sex. When necessary to implement the rights and responsibilities of spouses under the law, all gender specific language or terms shall be construed in a gender-neutral manner in all such sources of law.

Yet, despite the passage of the Marriage Equality Act and the newfound nationwide ability to marry, the courts in New York are contending with circumstances in which same-sex families were formed and children brought into them by using strategies that pre-date the ability of same-sex couples to marry. This approach has potentially devastating consequences when those families and their respective rights are addressed in divorce and family court proceedings. These problems arise from, and the courts continue to wrestle with the vestiges of, a rule established by the New York Court of Appeals a generation ago in Alison D. v. Virginia M., 77 N.Y.2d 651 (1991), which set the stage for categorical discrimination against same-sex parents based upon their lack of a biological or adoptive relationship to a child.

The impact of Alison D. was eroded somewhat by the Court of Appeals decision in Debra H. v. Janice R., 14 N.Y.3d 576 (2010), which, through application of comity, recognized parental standing of a non-biological non-adoptive parent in 2010 based upon Vermont’s judicially created rules granting standing based upon the couple’s civil union in Vermont. However, without the right to marry or enter into a civil union in New York at the time, children of unmarried same-sex couples in New York were not afforded the same benefits and protections.

This discrimination is not so easily remedied by the directives of the Marriage Equality Act because many of the parents involved in these situation were not or are not married at the time that their children are born and because the conceptual framework for the denial of standing is based upon a biologically based terminology that is found throughout the family and matrimonial law. This terminology reflects a fixation with the biomechanics of conception, a fixation which runs deeper than mere gender assumptions. Instead of a focus on the “best interest” of children, which is the bedrock determination of all other matters related to their custody and welfare in New York matrimonial and family law, the New York Supreme, Family and Surrogate’s Courts continue to trip over the threshold issues of “standing” when it comes to same-sex parents because of references to “birth” parents or the heterosexual and gender assumptions implied by the use of the word “paternity.” For example, a “paternity” test directed in Family Court proceeding continues to only apply to men and only to establish the biological relationship of men to children obviously born to women. Perforce, this excludes same-sex couples.

By Meg Canby and Caroline Krauss Browne

law.com

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IVF Does Not Raise Breast Cancer Risk, Study Shows

Women undergoing in vitro fertilization have long worried that the procedure could raise their risk for breast cancer.

After all, the IVF treatment requires temporarily increasing levels of certain sex hormones to five or 10 times the normal. Two of those hormones, estrogen and progesterone, can affect the course of certain kinds of breast cancer.

A series of studies over the past decade suggested that these former patients may have little to worry about. Experts remained cautious, however, because women who had undergone IVF in the 1980s had not yet reached menopause by the time of the research.adopting a child, how to adopt a child, adopt a child,Egg donors

But the largest, most comprehensive study to date, published on Tuesday, provides further reassurance: It finds no increased risk among women who have undergone I.V.F.

“The main takeaway is there’s no evidence of an increased subsequent risk of breast cancer, at least in the first couple decades,” said Dr. Saundra S. Buys, an oncologist at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the new study.

The issue has nagged at specialists in reproductive medicine for some time. In 2008, a retrospective analysis of medical records, which the authors called “preliminary,” found a potential increase in breast cancer among IVF patients older than 40.

Another small study of participants at a single treatment center in Israel reported an increased risk of breast cancer among women who start IVF after 30.

Maddeningly, later findings went the other way, seeming to suggest the danger — if there were one — may be greater for younger women.

A study with roughly 21,000 participants, published in 2012, found that women in Western Australia who began I.V.F. at 24 years old or younger had an increased risk of breast cancer. No such link was found among women in their 30s or 40s.

In 2013, though, researchers published a meta-analysis of eight smaller studies tentatively suggesting that I.V.F. didn’t seem to raise breast cancer risk overall.

But it did not rule out the possibility that breast cancer might turn up in a bigger group of women tracked more closely for an even longer period. Experts also worried that infertility itself, not only its treatment, might somehow be linked to breast cancer.

Today’s report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, goes a long way toward answering the lingering questions.

by Catherine Saint Louis

New York Times, July 19, 2016

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in IVF / Recently Added / Science  by Anthony Brown 2 comments

10 Insights of Remarkable Parenting from a Family Therapist

At any given time you’ll find 4 or more parenting books on my Amazon wish list, a few by my nightstand, and an email box chock full of remarkable parenting theories and approaches. 

Granted, child development is my career, but I speak with plenty of parents in my practice who find themselves in similar circumstances. With information around every corner and our culture projecting constant messages (many times contradictory) regarding how we should raise our kids, feeling like a confident and intentional parent can seem out of reach many days.

In my 12 years as a family therapist, I’ve seen many well-intentioned parents mistakenly employing strategies that aren’t meeting the emotional or developmental needs of their children or families. I’ve also observed an increasing number of parents that are successfully mapping out new and healthier ways of raising children. 

These insights, collected over time and gleaned from experience, parallel what we know from current brain and behavioral research about what kind of parenting is most likely to contribute to the healthy development of children. more gay couples are embracing surrogacy

1 | Know that kids will act like kids. 

Often parents forget that the way a child’s learning begins is by screwing up. Making mistakes. Behaving immaturely. The ‘magic’ happens when a supportive caregiver then steps in to steer them in the right direction. We get frustrated and impatient, becoming annoyed with whininess and ‘back talk’ when really, this is how kids are wired. 

The part of the brain responsible for reason, logic and impulse control is not fully developed until a person reaches their early 20’s. Immature behavior is normal for immature human beings with immature brains. This is a scientific reality that helps us to be patient and supportive in order to guide our children when they struggle. 

2 | Set limits with respect, not criticism. 

Due to the fact that our kids need to learn literally everything about the world from us, they will require many limits throughout their day. Without proper limits in their environment, kids will feel anxious and out of control. 

Limits can be delivered in the form of criticism and shaming, or they can be communicated in a firm but respectful way.  Think about how you appreciate being spoken to at work and go from there.

3 | Be aware of developmental stages. 

Have you ever questioned where your easy-going toddler disappeared to as he was suddenly screaming bloody murder while getting dropped off at daycare? Hello separation anxiety! 

There are literally hundreds of very normal, very healthy transitions kids go through to become adults. Being aware of these puts their puzzling behaviors into context, and increases the odds of reacting to them accurately and supportively. 

4 | Know your child’s temperament and personality.

It seems pretty obvious, but if we are in tune with the characteristics that make our child unique, we will have a better understanding of when they may need additional support, and when and where they will thrive. 

Once you know the basics of what makes your child tick, many important areas become much easier to navigate, such as pinpointing the best environment for homework, or understanding why your daughter needs to come home from overnight summer camp.

5 | Give your child plenty of unstructured play time. 

Unless you studied play therapy in school, most adults will never fully understand and appreciate the power of play. 

Play is how kids learn all the things and develop all the stuff. This means leaving time each day for straight-up unstructured, kid-controlled, exploration of the world kind of play. 

6 | Know when to talk and when to listen. 

Kids learn to be pretty good problem solvers if we let them. Because we love the life out of them and want them to succeed, it’s hard not to jump in and solve problems for them by virtue of lecture or criticism.2

If parents more often held their tongues and waited it out, they’d be shocked at how often their children can successfully reach their own conclusions. Being heard is powerfully therapeutic, and it allows us to think things through and reach a solution.3

Kids want and need to be heard, and feel understood. Just like the rest of us.2

7 | Have an identity outside of your child. 

Many of us often claim that our children are our world, and this is certainly true in our hearts. In terms of daily life however, parents need to have more. We need to nurture the friendships, passions and hobbies that make us who we are as individuals. 

Doing this can feel like a battle, as our protective anxieties try to convince us our children can’t be without us, and also that we can’t be without them. But we can be, and need to be,in order to stay sane, and avoid saddling our kids with the task of meeting all of ouremotional needs.

by Angela Pruess, June 15, 2016  parent.co

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Same-Sex Couples Can Now Adopt In Every State

Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Mississippi’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children is unconstitutional, making gay adoption legal in all 50 states.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, citing the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide last summer. The injunction blocks Mississippi from enforcing its 16-year-old anti-gay adoption law.

The Supreme Court ruling “foreclosed litigation over laws interfering with the right to marry and rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage,” Jordan wrote. “It also seems highly unlikely that the same court that held a state cannot ban gay marriage because it would deny benefits — expressly including the right to adopt — would then conclude that married gay couples can be denied that very same benefit.”

Mississippi HRC state director Rob Hill said this of the ruling:

Friday, July 1, 2016 via The Vital Voice

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SCOTUS same-sex marriage ruling has allowed kids to have 2 legal parents, more stable homes and futures

When gay marriage became the law of the land last summer, Lin Quenzer and Barbara Baier were one of numerous gay couples in Nebraska eager to wed.

However, after 27 years together, a wedding cake and a marriage certificate weren’t their top priority. It was their son. They needed to wed to ensure their teenager would be legally bound to both parents for a lifetime and beyond — from every form that required a parental signature to each woman’s last will and testament.

After their summer wedding, the couple’s attorney immediately began drawing up adoption papers. A little over three months later, Robert Quenzer-Baier, then 15, was legally recognized as Quenzer’s son.

“He cried, we cried. We took pictures. It just meant the world to him. … He said ‘Nothing can take us apart now,’ ” recalled Quenzer, who is the Lincoln city ombudsman.

It was exactly a year ago today that the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic same-sex marriage ruling, known as Obergefell v. Hodges. The ruling ended decades of debate and one of the biggest culture wars in America. It gave every gay couple in all 50 states the right to walk down the aisle.

But, as Quenzer’s adoption proceeding showed, the ruling had implications far beyond marriage. One of its greatest impacts was on the children of same-sex couples, many of whom were legally tied to only one parent because states such as Nebraska prohibited unmarried couples from adopting a child together.

Nebraska was one of the 13 states that did not allow gay marriage when the high court ruling came down. It had been legalized in the nation’s other states through a patchwork of court or legislative actions. In neighboring Iowa, for example, gay marriage had been legal since 2009 because of an Iowa Supreme Court decision.

On the day of the ruling, some Nebraska couples rushed to their local county clerk’s offices to secure marriage licenses. For a few days, gay marriage ceremonies were a novelty on the wedding circuit.

Some people continue to oppose such unions. But for many people — especially among the nation’s younger generation — same-sex marriages have become an accepted fact of life.

It is hard to know exactly how many same-sex couples married in the wake of the court ruling. States like Nebraska do not keep statistics for gay or straight marriages.

In Douglas County, workers in the County Clerk’s Office kept track of the number of same-sex unions for about the first six months. After that, they stopped.marriage equality

“It’s kind of amazing that, once it happened, it’s really just like any other couple,” said County Clerk Dan Esch. No one in his office even bats an eye these days.

However, Esch and his staff did go back and come up with a tally in anticipation of today’s anniversary. Over the past year, through June 13, the county had issued 173 same-sex marriage licenses — just a fraction of the nearly 4,000 marriage licenses issued overall in Douglas County during that time period.

Nationwide it is estimated there have been 123,000 same-sex marriages since the ruling, according to a Gallup survey.

Last year’s court decision hasn’t ended the nation’s culture wars, of course. But today’s battles are more about what’s happening in bathrooms and bakeries than in bedrooms and courthouses.

Laws have been introduced over the past year that would, among other things, compel transgender people to use the bathroom that conforms with their gender at birth or protect bakers from having to make a cake for a same-sex union.

“The fight to preserve religious liberty is the first critical battle of the post-Obergefell era,” according to a report filed this past week by the Family Leader, an Iowa organization that opposes same-sex marriage.

The gay community sees the baker and bathroom debates as “manufactured” fights so that anti-gay groups can remain relevant, now that the high court has settled the marriage debate. “It’s the last gasp of the dying beast. They’re grabbing for things,” said Donna Red Wing, executive director of One Iowa, an LGBT rights advocacy organization in Iowa.

As with same-sex marriage statistics, it is hard to know exactly how many children have been adopted by same-sex couples since the ruling. Adoptions are done by individual courts, which do not keep track.

However, several lawyers in Nebraska said they have worked with same-sex couples eager to adopt their son or daughter in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

“I’ve personally worked on eight to 10 step-parent adoptions, where the same-sex spouse has been able to adopt children who for all intents and purposes was that person’s child,” said Susan Sapp, a Lincoln attorney. “They were very relieved. Whether you agree or disagree with the marriage decision, there were existing families where children didn’t have legal stability.”

In states such as Nebraska, these families that were created with the help of sperm donors, single-parent adoption or other procreation routes were in legal limbo. The state did not allow non-married couples to adopt children. Given the state’s ban on same-sex marriages, that policy was essentially a ban on gay adoptions as well.

That meant that children of these unions did not have all the same protections afforded to other children. In the event of a parent’s death, the child was not legally viewed as an heir to the non-legal parent. And the non-legal parent had no inherent right to the child. In the event of a separation, one parent could deny — or attempt to deny — visitation to the other. Or one of the two parents could walk away without being responsible for child support.

There were few legal guarantees afforded to such families.

June 26, 2016

By Robynn Tysver / World-Herald staff writer – Omaha.com

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in Family Stories / Legal / Parenting / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 1 comments