Lesbian couple wins
right to have
names on birth
certificate
By WAYNE PARRY, AP
from Newsday.com on the Web, May 26, 2005
NEWARK, N.J. -- A lesbian
couple has won the right to have both their names listed on a birth certificate
as the parents of a baby girl born to one of the women through artificial
insemination.
The decision -- the first of its kind in New Jersey -- guarantees both women
full parental rights to the child.
Kimberly Robinson and Jeanne LoCicero registered in New York as domestic
partners in 2003 and got married in Canada last summer. They bought a
house together in Essex County, and decided they wanted to have a child
together. Robinson was impregnated using sperm from an anonymous donor,
and their daughter, Vivian Ryan LoCicero, was born on April 30.
"We're thrilled," LoCicero, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties
Union of New Jersey, said Thursday. "We always felt like a family; now
it's nice to know the court thinks we are one, too."
"We are relieved that we won't have the uncertainty and fear about whether our
daughter would be protected if something happened to one of us," added Robinson.
The ruling by Superior Court Judge Patricia Medina Talbert in Newark on
Wednesday eliminates the need for LoCicero to go through adoption proceedings in
order to have the same parental rights as those of the birth mother.
Ed Barocas, the ACLU's legal director for New Jersey, said the case dealt with
the state's artificial insemination law, which protects a child's relationship
to a non-biological parent who consents to a spouse's artificial insemination.
The statute was written with the case in mind of a man who consents to the
artificial insemination of his wife with another man's sperm, but should apply
equally to same-sex partners, Barocas said.
"It definitely provides protection to the child based on the equal protection
laws, that this child should be no less protected than a child of a heterosexual
union," he said.
In considering the case, the judge noted the many steps the couple has gone
through to demonstrate their commitment to one another as proof that they formed
a stable union in the child's best interest.
In addition to registering as domestic partners and getting married in Canada,
the women bought a house near their families and friends who would provide a
support network, sought a sperm donor with physical characteristics
approximating those of LoCicero so the baby might look like her as well as
Robinson, and gave the child LoCicero's surname.
Because the question at issue was the relationship of LoCicero and the child,
and not LoCicero's relationship with Robinson, the court did not need to rule on
whether their marriage in Canada is legally valid in New Jersey, Barocas said.
"We do find ourselves in a time where the American family composed of mom, dad
and two children applies, in fact, to only 23.5 percent of the American
population," the judge wrote in her decision. "LoCicero is not required,
under law or in equity, to take upon her the legal obligation of parentage.
"Her commitment, one could argue, is only to Robinson," the judge wrote.
"Her voluntary effort to be recognized as a parent under the law with its
attendant obligations and responsibilities evinces her desire, intention and
commitment to be a parent for Vivian Ryan."
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