On Monday, August 22, the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex parents who bear and raise a child both have parental rights and responsibilities regardless of sexual orientation. Boalt Hall Lecturer in Residence Joan Heifetz Hollinger, a leading scholar on adoption law and practice, was quoted in The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor about the ruling, which, she says, is “unprecedented around the country.”
The court issued decisions in three cases involving same-sex parents, ruling each time that the lesbian partner had parental rights or obligations.