California family lawyer Theresa Erickson pointed out a New York Times article on the developing science of surrogacy. The article talks about how scientific developments are making it possible for a child to have more than one biological parent. Defective DNA of a pregnant woman can be replaced with DNA from another woman, giving a child 2 biological moms.
This creates problems because state laws are set up with the assumption that a child can only have two biological parents. While a handful of cases have recently recognized the legal possibility of three parents, such as a Pennsylvania decision that made three adults pay child support, most states, including Georgia, have no such cases.
Theresa does note that the article makes a good suggestion for how the law can cope with these scientific advances:
Parenthood cannot be reduced to a formula, but the law should move toward a greater recognition that the intent of the people involved is more important than the genes. That would provide useful guidance for courts to think about fractional parents — especially if the day comes when three or more people want to combine their DNA to create a baby.
In other words, parental rights should be based on who take care of a child, not who’s biologically related. I’m not sure if this is a good solution, because often in child custody cases more than two adults have helped take care of the child. Certainly, it should be a factor, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a better system than biological relatedness.
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