Lesbian couple both get on twins’ birth certificates

by Anthony Glassman

Richmond, Va.--After a year and a half, twin babies Merida and Finn know exactly who their parents are.

Maria and Joani Hayman had the children in June 2013. The children were carried by Maria using Joani’s ova and sperm given by a donor who waived his parental rights, so it is should have been a simple matter to have Maria and Joani listed as the children’s parents on their birth certificates.

Virginia law, however, has no provision for egg donors being listed as parents on a birth certificate, so until suits pushing for same-sex marriage in the commonwealth were settled, only Maria could be listed as parent.

However, after the state decided to stop appealing rulings in favor of same-sex marriage, a judge in December ordered the Department of Health to change the birth certificates so that Maria and Joani were listed as the parents of the twins.

According to their attorney, Colleen Quinn, the couple originally thought about simply going through with the typical paperwork used by same-sex couples to protect their children in Virginia. However, because of the uniqueness of the case, with Joani donating the eggs, the sperm donor waiving his rights and Maria carrying the children to term, it seemed a good opportunity to push for full legal parenthood for Joani. Quinn worked the case pro bono, since she was not sure the court would agree with their interpretation of the law.

“All I could get for my same-sex couples (prior to marriage equality) was a joint custody order,” she told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “The get like 85 percent of what a parent would be as a guardian.”

Quinn used the sperm donor vs. egg donor quirk of Virginia’s legal code against itself, pointing out that if a sperm donor could use a DNA test to prove that he was a child’s father, why couldn’t an egg donor do the same to prove herself the mother?

The case also used a 2005 suit in which three same-sex couples had out-of-state adoption orders for babies born in Virginia. The state supreme court ruled that the couples could have both members listed on the birth certificates, since adoption law did not define the genders of adoptive parents.

The court’s decision in Joani and Maria’s case means that now Joani can check the children in at the doctor’s office without Maria present, and make medical decisions should they be needed. In addition, Maria can now be covered by Joani’s work-issued insurance policy, which was not available before Virginia began recognizing same-sex marriage.