FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 25, 2004

Lesbian Mother Has No Obligation to Pay Child Support

Split SJC Ruling that Lesbian Mother Has No Obligation to Pay Child Support

(Boston, MA) Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) today expressed disappointment in a decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in a case involving two lesbians who were in a relationship and mutually decided to conceive and raise a child together by the insemination of one of the women. In the case T.F. v. B.L. (SJC No. 09104), the SJC ruled that after the couple’s breakup, the non-biological partner did not have an obligation to support the child, even though the Court acknowledged that she intentionally and purposefully acted to bring the child into the world. GLAD represented the biological mother, T.F.

“The Court’s decision is disappointing because it does not reflect the reality of children’s lives today. Many couples, both gay and straight, use reproductive technologies to bring children into the world, where one parent has a biological relationship to the child and the other parent does not. These children deserve the same legal protections as any other children,” said Bennett H. Klein, a GLAD attorney and counsel for T.F. Klein added, “Children do not control the circumstances of their birth and should not be harmed when a parent who intentionally and purposefully brings a child into the world disavows support for the child.”

T.F. and B.L., a lesbian couple, were in a relationship from 1996 to 2000. They wanted to start a family and agreed to conceive a child together and both raise and parent the child. After discussing alternatives, they agreed that T.F. should bear the child. T.F. and B.L. jointly selected an anonymous donor and T.F. became pregnant in December 1999. But in April 2000, B.L. broke up with T.F. T.F. gave birth to the child in July 2000. T.F. sued for support and after a three-day trial in Hampshire County Probate and Family Court, Judge Gail Perlman found that B.L. and T.F. made an agreement to have a child, but asked the Massachusetts Appeals Court to decide whether such an agreement could be enforced. The Supreme Judicial Court granted direct appellate review and heard oral argument on March 4, 2004.

While the SJC’s decision today was an important one, GLAD attorney Klein noted that “the decision is limited to narrow circumstances where an unmarried couple breaks up during a pregnancy.”

T.F.’s position in this case was supported by numerous child welfare organizations and reproductive technology providers, who signed “friend of the court” briefs, including the Child Welfare League of America, Massachusetts Citizens for Children, National Association of Social Workers, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Psychoanalytic Institute of New England, Ellen Perrin, M.D., a pediatrician at Tufts New England Medical Center, Barry Zuckerman, Chairman of Pediatrics at Boston University Medical School and Boston Medical Center, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Baystate Reproductive Medicine, Reproductive Science Center, Resolve: The National Infertility Association, and Resolve of the Bay State.