An Oklahoma Judge Just Transferred a Lesbian Mom’s Parental Rights to Her Son’s Sperm Donor

[IwantToRetire]

Kris Williams is a lesbian, and that means she won’t be seeing her son anytime soon. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. On Monday, Oklahoma County District Judge Lynne McGuire ruled that Williams had failed to adopt her son and had forfeited her parenting rights to his sperm donor.

Advocates say Williams’ case may test the bounds of equal marriage laws in Oklahoma and beyond. According to Williams, she and her ex-partner Rebekah Wilson planned to have their son and found sperm donor Harlan Vaughn on a paternity website together. The two married while Wilson was pregnant.

www.them.us/story/oklahoma-judge-parental-rights-lgbtq-same-sex-marriage

I've wondered whether this kind of thing will become an issue.

The trend in adoption circles, for some time now, has been to acknowledge that biological parentage is actually really important, even in adoption scenarios. Which is why open adoption is so much more common, and children retaining contact with extended family. As well as a significant reduction on things like international adoption.

It seems pretty clear that if you apply that same thinking to gamete donors and surrogacy, you raise a lot of questions about severing contact with a biological parent.

I've read the story in a number of papers, and it seems quite complicated and wondered whether part of the decision is because (according to one paper) the actual mother is now in a relationship with the sperm donor. If so was the decision about a heterosexual couple being seen as better parents than two lesbains?

But also, given recent press stories about some men who are "professional" sperm donors, will this mean their name will be on multiple birth certificates.

This may not be the best example in terms of creating a precident as it is complicated by the split of the original couple. Would it have happened if they had stayed together but no formal adoption made?

This is awful and shocking. I'm straight but I feel so much sympathy for my poor lesbian sisters- they seem to be fighting so much right now 😪

This is what may have informed the judge's decision:

Wilson has previously allegeded that Williams was abusive toward her and that she is attempting to remove Williams from her son’s life for his safety. During the divorce proceedings, Wilson was granted an emergency victim protective order that barred Williams from contact with her and W. That order was extended in Junene. Williams denies the abuse accusation and says it is irrelevant to the question of parentage.

If there is risk of harm to the child a judge would make a similar decision in a hetero relationship.

If there is risk of harm to the child a judge would make a similar decision in a hetero relationship.

Are you saying a birth certificate would be changed, in which cases there must be hundred of examples of this given the level of domestic violence?

Genuine question as I have never heard of a birth certiciate being altered in such circumstances.

Hasn't this happened before? I swear dejavu

There is a clear difference between removing a same sex partner from a birth certificate and removing the putative father, who is presumed to have a biological relationship to the child.

Would the mother be able to remove a putative father if he was abusive and she could prove he was not the biological father of the child?

Would everyone’s position have been clearer if the birth certificate had been issued only with the biological mother, and then an adoption certificate issued subsequently?

I think this is a complex situation where the biological mother and the biological father are now married. The person who carried and gave birth to the child happens to be in a lesbian relationship but that’s probably neither here nor there. She could be in a heterosexual relationship, the point is she is not the biological mother.

The biological mother is always likely to have greater rights than the person who carried the child when the two split up.

Plus, apparently Kris Williams had the option of formally adopting the boy, but never did. Though would be harsh to love a child and then no contact. However, we’re unlikely to know the full details.

I’m a bit cynical about cases like this getting lots of publicity. I assume they are focusing on relatively more sympathetic lesbian adoptive mothers to campaign for legislation that makes it easier for dodgy men (no, I don’t mean gay men, I think lesbians and gay men are being used as the thin end of the dodgy men’s rights wedge) to obtain babies via surrogacy without inconvenient mothers getting in the way.

I feel bad for this woman if the facts are as she represents them, and she’s clearly being treated unequally relative to a male partner. But I am cynical about what changes in the law will be suggested to remedy this.

But the biological mother isn't the issue.

The issue is whether the person who was in a relationship with the mother at the time of the birth of the child and registered on the birth certificate actually has no rights.

What if a heterosexual couple who had a child by donor inseminiation, then split. Could the mother than have her husband at the time removed from the birth certificate?

Beginning to think this may be right:

Would everyone’s position have been clearer if the birth certificate had been issued only with the biological mother, and then an adoption certificate issued subsequently?

But presumably could lead to a child being adopted more than once if the mother then had a second or their relationship.

Actually it’s even more straight forward than that. The biological mother who also carried and gave birth to the child is now with the biological father.

If Wilson had been married to a man who was not the baby's father, then he could have been put on the birth cert. And if the baby's biological father had disputed this, the same change would ultimately have been made.

I mean, this is America and their laws are all a bit confusing. In the uk being named on the BC confers PR and that is almost never removed. A biological father can get himself added by court order but a non biological parent would have to either be on the BC or obtain PR via an order. I don't see how this scenario is that different- has She been removed from the BC or has whatever the American version of overriding PR been granted to the biological parents?

Is the child now with his biological parents?

But the biological mother isn't the issue.

The issue is that rights were taken from an adoptive parent and given to a biological parent. In this case, the biological father. In other cases, it could be the mother. This case could be useful to the dodgy men’s rights campaign precisely because the sexes are reversed.

Birth certificates are meant to be a record of the two people whose gametes contributed to the creation of the child, right? Or is it a record of the people who have parental responsibility?

Why is anyone up in arms that the mother's former female partner (who hadn't actually adopted the child) is no longer being named as a parent, then?
Honestly, op? This is not a scandalous outrage, give over.

But she didn't adopt him? She didn't do whatever she needed to do to be legally his parent. So now she's not.

The problem is it functions as both.

Yes this is what I don't understand
I thought that birth certificates were a strict record of parentage and that adoption certificates were used in cases where the parenting parents were different.

In most cases they are the same. There should be some process by which the partner who hasn't got a gamete involved can be legally recognised. I suppose the best option in current law is adoption and the woman didn't do that. I'm not sure what law change would fix this issue and not have some negative implications, as DarkDay says above. It is of course very sad for the woman in question, and the child.

In lots of countries the mother's husband is automatically the legal father. It stated in the article that is also the case where baby W was born.

She can't have been on the birth certificate if she never adopted the child

She was, as she was the mother's legal spouse. Spouses are automatically recorded as a second parent. A law which assumes that the mother is married to a man and that only he can be the father of her children born within the marriage.