{"id":720,"date":"2015-12-02T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T08:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/?p=720"},"modified":"2021-12-29T21:15:45","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T21:15:45","slug":"ruling-in-arkansas-allows-birth-certificate-amendments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/ruling-in-arkansas-allows-birth-certificate-amendments\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruling in Arkansas Allows Birth Certificate Amendments"},"content":{"rendered":"

The landmark gay marriage ruling was the first step. Solid parentage laws are the next frontier for gay parents,and a recent ruling in Arkansas just made a giant leap forward in that direction. In the <\/span>Associated Press<\/a>, reporter Claudia Lauer covered a legal battle in which Pulaski County Judge Tim Fox recently issued an informal ruling that three same-sex couples who sued the state could amend their children\u2019s birth certificates to list the non-biological parent along with the biological parent.\"AR<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Judge Fox viewed the inability to name the non-biological parent on the birth certificates as disparate treatment of same-sex couples.\u00a0 As the couples\u2019 attorney explained, where heterosexual couples use sperm donors, the donor must waive parental rights, but there is no requirement that a court order be issued to name both spouses on the birth certificate, contrary to what the Arkansas Health Department had been told was needed in order to amend the birth certificates for the children born to the same-sex couples.<\/p>\n

Judge Fox told the Court, \u201cAs much as I would like to announce from the bench exactly what my ruling is, because I don\u2019t know exactly what my ruling is I\u2019m not going to announce that today. The easy part is to amend the birth certificates for the three main couples and that is the order of the court today so that there\u2019s no more delay with respect to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although a written ruling will not be issued until December, the couples were directed to the Arkansas Department of Health so that amendments to the birth certificates could be made immediately.<\/p>\n

This announcement was faced with some protest from Assistant Attorney General Colin Jorgensen.<\/p>\n

Jorgensen, argued that while the statute and related Health Department regulations allow biological parents to amend their children\u2019s birth certificates, non-biological parents must go through a legal process in order to be listed on the birth certificates.<\/p>\n

Jorgensen pointed out that this requirement was not tied specifically to one\u2019s sexual orientation, but affected all non-biological parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re seeking a blanket rule that we\u2019re going to create parental rights without even looking at the best interest of the individual children or the individual cases,\u201d Jorgensen said.<\/p>\n

Judge Fox responded that the \u201cbiology argument\u201d for this statute would be the \u201cbest argument on appeal,\u201d but noted, \u201cI don\u2019t see it framed that way, and if the high court does, then I\u2019m going to get it reversed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same-sex couples who brought the suit were married women. They brought on attorney Cheryl Maples to fight for their equality.<\/p>\n

The impetus of the lawsuit was the State Health Department\u2019s refusal to list the non-biological mother on the birth certificates without a court order.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe couples sought the birth certificates after the U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down gay marriage bans nationwide,\u201d Lauer wrote.<\/p>\n

While one couple was married in Arkansas days after the landmark gay marriage ruling, the other two couples wed out of state before the ruling was issued.<\/p>\n

This courtroom decision is another huge victory for same-sex couples in Arkansas seeking equality.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The landmark gay marriage [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,8,9,10,11,13,1],"tags":[21,32,174,197],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assisted-reproduction","category-egg-donation-2","category-fertility-2","category-infertility-2","category-ivf","category-lgbt","category-sperm-donation-2","category-uncategorized","tag-arkansas","tag-birth-certificate","tag-parentage","tag-same-sex"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}