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The New Illegitimacy: Tying Parentage To Marital Status For Lesbian Co-Parents, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Should a child be allowed two legal parents only if born into a marriage? For children of heterosexual parents, the answer, today, is definitively "no." Constitutional protection for parental rights does not permit the ties between an unwed father and his child to be severed simply because he is not married to the child's mother. But the answer is often different for the child of a lesbian mother. In a recent opinion, Debra H. v. Janice R., the New York Court of Appeals ruled that a lesbian co-parent- a woman who had participated in the conception, birth, and early rearing …