Daytona – A Daytona appeals court has ruled that a lesbian who is no longer with her partner still has custody rights to the child they raised together.
The ruling overturns a previous ruling by a Seminole County judge who nullified the adoption.
The women, identified in court documents only by their initials, were in a committed relationship from 2005 to 2012 and conceived the child in 2007 using an anonymous donor.
The birth mother changed her last name to match her partner’s and child’s, and the two women raised the child together. In 2011, they petitioned the court to allow the birth mother’s partner to legally adopt their child, and the adoption was granted in 2012. The couple received a birth certificate listing both of their names as parents. The women separated and co-parented for a year, but then the birth mother requested that the adoption be voided. The Seminole County judge granted that request.
The May 21 ruling reverses the ruling, and states that the child was raised by both women, regards them equally as parents and the birth mother is wrong to argue otherwise.
“It would be unconscionable to allow [birth mother] to invoke the jurisdiction of the court for the sole purpose of creating a parent-child relationship between [partner] and [child] and then to allow her to destroy that same relationship because her relationship with [partner] has ended,” the ruling states.
The court decision requests that both parents work on a co-custody and parenting agreement.
