What are parentage laws and how do they impact LGBTQ+ families? To answer these questions and more, Meg York, Family Equality’s Director of LGBTQ+ Family Law and Policy, Senior Policy Counsel, spoke with Maureen Leif and Nesta Johnson (National Center for Lesbian Rights) for a special episode of News From the Peak.
Together, they discuss the importance of clear, inclusive parentage laws and how these laws can support the recognition and rights of all families, regardless of sexual orientation. Listen at the link above!
What is parentage and why does it matter?
As the world of LGBTQ+ family-building evolves, state laws struggle to keep up. What’s more, we’ve seen efforts to undermine LGBTQ+ family formation by calling into question the legal security of children born through assisted reproduction. For these, and so many other reasons, it’s so critical for non-biological and/or non-gestational parents to protect their family by securing parentage, a legal relationship between children and their primary caregivers from which many rights and responsibilities flow.
Depending on where you live and your family circumstances, there are a few ways to secure legal parentage, including signing a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Parentage (VAP); pursuing a stepparent, second parent, or confirmatory adoption; or obtaining a parentage judgment.
Recent victories for our families
Family Equality has been hard at work to update state laws to make it easier for all families to access these important legal protections, including families with children born through assisted reproduction and surrogacy. In fact, after this podcast episode was recorded, Massachusetts formally enacted the Massachusetts Parentage Act, a landmark piece of legislation that modernizes Massachusetts’ outdated parentage laws to better protect families by providing clear, comprehensive, consistent, and accessible avenues to establishing legal parentage for families in the Commonwealth. This win comes after more than seven years of advocacy, led by GLAD and a coalition of advocates, including Family Equality.
Similarly, in April of this year, Governor Whitmer signed the Michigan Family Protection Act into law, creating a clear path for Michigan children born through assisted reproduction to establish a secure legal tie to their parents.
But of course, that’s not all! In New York, we’re also working to improve and expand parental recognition, and across the country, we’re advocating for more streamlined confirmatory adoption processes for people who are already legal parents under state law or doctrine. At state and national levels — from coast to coast and everywhere in between — Family Equality is working to champion legislation that safeguards access to legal parent-child relationships
You can learn more about our efforts to clean up the nation’s patchwork of parentage laws by listening to Meg’s full interview with Maureen and Nesta anywhere you get your podcasts.
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