NOM BLOG

Ohio Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Biological Mother in Same-Sex Parenting Dispute

 

The Columbus Dispatch reports:

In a 4-3 decision yesterday, the [Ohio Supreme Court] justices upheld lower-court rulings that a Cincinnati woman did not agree to shared legal custody of her daughter, now 5, despite planning the in-vitro pregnancy with her partner and naming her a "co-parent" in power-of-attorney documents.

Biological mom Kelly Mullen voided those documents after she and Lucy, then 2, moved out of the house they shared with Michele Hobbs in 2007. Hobbs' name appears on the ceremonial birth certificate, and she helped raise and financially support Lucy.

The legal dispute is one of several in Ohio and nationally to test the parental rights of people who are not biologically related to a child but have assumed parental responsibilities.

... Columbus lawyer Doug Dougherty, who represented Mullen in the Supreme Court, applauded the court for affirming biological parents' constitutional right to raise their children.

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