New York Court Redefines Parenthood

New York's highest court redefined what it means to be a parent on Tuesday, ruling that someone who has maintained a parental relationship with a child but is not biologically related to, or even the adoptive parent of a child has the right to seek visitation and custody of the child.

In its decision, the New York Court of Appeals reversed a legal precedent set 25 years ago which determined that someone who did not have a biological relationship with a child did not have the right to seek visitation. In its decision, the court stated the definition of "parent" established by Alison D. v. Virginia M. "has become unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships."

The court ruled Tuesday 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."

Tuesday's ruling came from two custody disputes in the state of New York. In the first case, Brooke B. v. Elizabeth C.C., a woman sought visitation rights to a boy she helped raise with her partner, who gave birth to the child. The couple was engaged but could not legally marry at the time in New York. After the couple separated in 2010, the woman regularly visited the boy until the child's biological mother ended the visits.

In a second case, Estrellita A. v Jennifer D., the non-biological mother was sued by her ex-partner who was attempting to keep the woman from seeing the child they had agreed to conceive together, even though a court had previously ruled the non-biological mother must pay child support.

Lambda Legal, an organization committed to the civil rights of the LGBT community that was involved in the case, praised the decision.

“This is a landmark change in New York for children born to same-sex and other couples who couldn’t or didn’t marry and who later split up, without any protection under the law for the critical ongoing relationships between the non-biological parents and their children,” Susan Sommer, national director of constitutional litigation at Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “Prior to today’s decision, New York law on this issue was tragically stuck in 1991, when the Court of Appeals ruled in the Alison D. case that non-biological, non-married, non-adoptive parents are legal strangers to the children they raised with a same-sex partner.”

New York legalized same-sex marriage in 2011, and in 2015 the United States Supreme Court granted same-sex couples the right to marry across the country. In its decision, the court also said "a growing body of social science reveals the trauma children suffer as a result of separation from a primary attachment figure -- such as a de facto parent -- regardless of that figure's biological or adoptive ties to the children." The decision cited, among others, a 2014 paper in the Journal of Law and Policy that said although New York recognized the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, it failed to recognize the legal legitimacy of same-sex separation, leaving non-biological parents without the ability to maintain relationships with their children after actually separating.

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