Courts and 'tri-parenting': A state-by-state look
NEW YORK (AP) - Courts, lawmakers or both in least 12 U.S. states have said that some children can have more than two parents, though there are differences in the details of what that means. There's no comprehensive list of three-parent cases. But here are some examples:
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ALASKA: Alaska judges have approved third-parent adoptions in recent years, says Allison Mendel, a longtime family law attorney in Anchorage. She worked on an adoption a few years ago involving a terminally ill single mother and a male couple. The mother, who has since died, wanted to position the men to be surviving parents without giving up her child while she was living, Mendel said.
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CALIFORNIA: A 2013 law says courts can declare that a child has more than two parents and consider them all in custody, child support and other contexts. It was prompted by a case in which a troubled lesbian couple's baby girl ended up in foster care, and her biological father lost a bid to be declared a third parent as he sought custody. The law's sponsor said it gave courts leeway to look out for children's best interests at a time when families are taking on new forms. Opponents said it eroded traditional parental roles and would allow people to "parent by committee."
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DELAWARE: Delaware courts have recognized three legal parents in some families. In one, a man had married a woman pregnant with another man's child. The child called both the husband and the biological father "Dad." The court concluded in 2013 that it was "appropriate to give legal parental status to three people in this case": the biological mother and father, plus the husband as a "de facto" parent.
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FLORIDA: A judge agreed in 2013 to put three parents' names on a Miami girl's birth certificate. The case involved a lesbian couple and a male friend. The women had initially envisioned him having a non-parental role in the girl's life; he said he was hurt when they asked him to sign away his rights during the pregnancy. They clashed in court before agreeing to a three-parent birth certificate and weekly visits for the man, while parental decision-making responsibility stayed with the women. "If you have love to give to a child, please just do it," the man said at the time.
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LOUISIANA: Louisiana courts have allowed for "dual paternity" when a mother's husband - generally, the presumed father of children born in the marriage - isn't the biological father. But "there hasn't been any legal recognition of people deliberately embarking on a multi-parent family," says Jeffrey Wittenbrink, a longtime family law attorney in Baton Rouge. In 2010, the state's highest court did OK "tripartite custody " among a child's multigenerational "family unit": his biological parents and a grandmother who had adopted the boy and had lived in a two-family home with them all.
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MAINE: Lawmakers decided in 2015 to empower courts to find that a child has more than two parents, as part of a major overhaul of parentage laws. Passed over Republican Gov. Paul LePage's veto , the law took effect last July. Maine courts had occasionally declared third parents beforehand, but the law made it clear they had that authority and laid out criteria for such "de facto" parents, says Alicia Cushing, a Portland attorney who chairs the state bar association's family law section and has handled such cases herself.
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NEW JERSEY: A 2015 ruling on "tri-parenting" involved a woman, a man who'd been her best friend since college, and his husband. They had a child together in 2009 and were so proud of their three-part parenting arrangement that they did media interviews, but the relationship soured after the woman proposed to move to California. A judge eventually blocked her move and gave custody of their daughter to all three, finding the best friend's husband to be a "psychological parent." The court, however, declined to declare him a legal parent. The three adults have continued to square off in court over various issues.
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NEW YORK: A three-part intimate relationship among a husband, his wife and a female neighbor in suburban Long Island eventually led to the state's first known "tri-custody" ruling , released this past March. The three decided together to have and raise a child, whom the neighbor bore. The women later split off as a couple, and the husband and wife divorced. Although the ex-wife lived with the biological mother and boy, she wanted the legal protection of shared custody. A judge granted it, citing the best interest of "a well-adjusted 10-year-old boy who loves his father and his two mothers." At least one other "tri-custody" case is ongoing in New York, according to Eric Wrubel, who is representing a gay couple in that case.
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NORTH DAKOTA: The state's highest court ruled in 2010 on the case of a man who'd raised a boy as his son for six years, before learning that another man had fathered him. With both biological parents also in the boy's life, the state Supreme Court found the man was an additional, "psychological parent." He was granted rights including visitation and even invitations to special school events. But only the mother was given decision-making authority over the child, and the justices suggested the child should not be shuttled among "three different homes with three different 'parents' each week."
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OREGON: Some Oregon judges have approved third-parent adoptions in recent years, say Beth and Jennifer Wolfsong, who have handled some such cases at their Portland law firm. Clients who had third-parent adoptions approved included three adults in an intimate relationship who embarked together on having a child. But other clients seeking third-parent adoptions have been turned down, and the issue remains quite new in Oregon courts.
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PENNSYLVANIA: A Pennsylvania appeals court decided in a 2007 that a man who fathered children for a lesbian couple had to contribute to child support after the couple broke up. He had agreed to be a sperm donor and then became involved in the two children's lives, encouraging them to call him "Papa" and pitching in thousands of dollars toward their care, the court found. The court said he had shown an intention "to demonstrate parental involvement far beyond the merely biological" and ordered that he be factored as an "indispensable party" in child support, though it didn't expressly declare him a parent. By the time of the ruling, he had died - and left his estate to the children, his lawyers said.
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WASHINGTON STATE: Washington courts have recognized third parents, such as a man who was told he had fathered his girlfriend's baby. He served as the child's primary parent after the mother left him, before her former boyfriend was shown to be the biological father and embraced paternity. An appeals court agreed in 2013 that the first man was "a father to this child," with visitation rights and support obligations.
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ON THE HORIZON?
WASHINGTON, D.C.: It's not clear that any third parents have been legally recognized in the nation's capital. But family-law attorneys have taken notice that a new law allowing surrogate pregnancies doesn't speak to any particular number of "intended parents" who can contract with a surrogate (it does specify that the surrogate herself won't have parental rights). The law, which took effect just this April, could be "a substantial open door" to third parents, family-law attorney Christopher Locey says.