Delaware lesbian ordered to pay child support
- - - - - - - - - - - - By Randall Chase
March 16, 2002 | NEWARK, Del. --
Delaware has joined a handful of states breaking legal ground in child support with a court ruling that two women should both be considered parents of a 4-year-old boy to whom one gave birth after in-vitro fertilization.
The women, who have separated, are identified in court papers by the pseudonyms of Karen Chambers, the birth mother, and Carol Chambers. The child was given the pseudonym David.
Karen sought mandatory child support after Carol was awarded permanent visitation rights.
Carol, who says she helped pay for the fertility treatments and pays voluntary child support, argued that the state should not force her to pay because she has no biological or adoptive connection to the child, and because Delaware does not recognize same-sex couples.
Family Court Commissioner John Carrow rejected Carol's arguments and ordered both sides to attend a child support hearing on Monday.
California, Pennsylvania and Washington are the only other states that have wrestled with child support cases involving homosexual partners, according to legal experts.
"This is a very new area of law," said Tiffany Palmer, legal director at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights in Philadelphia. "These are important cases because they reinforce that rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand."
Karen's attorney, Michael Corrigan, said Carrow's ruling is a broad interpretation of the Delaware Parentage Act.
"It takes a very liberal reading of the statute, there's no question, to say it can apply to something other than a biological or adoptive mother or father," Corrigan said.
Carol's attorney, Felice Glennon Kerr, said Carrow went too far. The parentage act describes the parent-child relationship as existing between a child and his or her "natural or adoptive" parents, she said.
Palmer, of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, represented a lesbian in Pennsylvania who won child support from her ex-partner for five children they had through artificial insemination. An appeal is pending.
Pennsylvania courts also have ordered child support payments in two similar cases, Palmer said.
Settlement negotiations are under way in the California case, said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco.
"It doesn't matter if you cause a child to be born the old-fashioned way ... or arrange for the birth through medical technology," Minter said. "In either case, you should be held responsible."
In Washington state, an appeals court last year upheld a ruling that a lesbian who stopped child support after her ex-partner restricted visitation was not legally a parent and should not have to pay.
Karen and Carol Chambers celebrated a union ceremony in 1995. They went to a fertility clinic together and Karen gave birth to David in December 1996.
Carol and a previous partner had a baby under similar circumstances.
"She talks these women into having babies ... but she doesn't want to help support them like she should," said Karen, who had four children of her own when she met Carol.
Carol said she voluntarily supports the children of both of her ex-partners, including $60 a week for David. She said Karen hasn't worked since 1995 and relies on Social Security benefits and child support for one of her daughters.
Carol said she would agree to joint custody if Karen agreed to allow her more time with the boy, but if she is forced to pay child support she plans to seek sole custody.
The women do not want to be held up as symbols in a debate on homosexual rights.
"I'm not trying to change the world," Karen said. "I'm just trying to get her to do right by him."
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