Associated Press notes the California state appeals court ruling against a lesbian egg donor. The woman’s gift to her former partner was accompanied by a pre-birth agreement waiving any legal parental rights.
David Kravets writes (excerpt):
Diana Richmond, the attorney for the birth mother, praised the decision, saying it “beautifully upholds the freedom of choice of same-sex partners on whether both partners will or will not be the parents.”
She said the women “had agreed that only one of them will be the parent.”
“They never agreed to an adoption and no adoption proceedings were initiated,” Richmond said.
Shannon Minter, an attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said if the genetic mother was a man, she would have been awarded rights to the children, pointing to a 2002 California Supreme Court decision granting a non-biological father rights to a child he helped rear.