A family court judge in Florida recently
authorized the reissuance of a 22-month-old girl’s birth certificate. No big
deal, right? After all, birth certificates get reissued all the time due to
clerical errors or name changes. In this case, the reissuance was not because
of any old typo. Instead, the toddler would be getting a third parent.
The case starts with a lesbian couple,
Maria Italiano and Cher Filippazzo. The two had been considering having a child
for a while when they met a new friend, a Miami hairdresser named Massimiliano
Gerina. Gerina, a gay man, became fast friends with the duo. After a while the
two approached Gerina and asked if he’d consider donating sperm to allow the
two to have a child. At first he shrugged off the offer, but after some lengthy
consideration he decided he was game.
The only condition to his participation
was that Gerina wanted to play an important role in the child’s life. Not
content to be an anonymous sperm donor, Gerina wanted to have visitation rights
and get to know his child. The lesbian couple was on board and the three
reached a verbal agreement laying out Gerina’s rights and responsibilities.
Things, unfortunately, got complicated the moment the child was born. Florida law (and the law of most other states) says that sperm donors have no parental rights to their biological offspring. As a bit of an aside, here in Ohio if the couple receiving the sperm knows the donor, the donor is only released from legal responsibility for the child if the procedure is performed with a physician’s involvement. Florida has no such law and Gerina would ordinarily have no rights or responsibilities for the child, something the lesbian couple eventually decided they agreed with. Going back on their verbal agreement, the couple now prevented Gerina from seeing the girl, denying him the role he felt he’d been promised.
Gerina, in turn, filed suit seeking to
enforce their original verbal agreement. The Florida judge who presided over
the case eventually sided with Gerina, at least on most issues. The lesbian
couple will maintain sole parental rights to the child and Gerina will not be
expected to pay child support. However, Gerina has been given visitation rights
to the girl and has also been allowed to have his name listed on the child’s
birth certificate.
Two moms and a dad certainly make for an
unconventional family, but one that reflects the changing realities of modern
life. If you find yourself facing the prospect of complicated divorce and have
questions about your rights and options, contact an experienced Ohio
family law attorney who
can help guide you through the difficult process. Count on the expertise of
Twinsburg family law attorney Carol
L. Stephan.
Source: “Florida judge approves birth certificate listing three parents,” by Kevin Gray, published at Reuters.com.
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