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Ark. Supreme Court: Only biological parents' names should be on birth certificates

A majority of justices said biological parents should be listed on birth certificates, while the dissenting judges argued that state law bases parents named on birth certificates on marital relationships, not biology.

By Stephen Feller
The Arkansas Supreme Court overruled a lower court's ruling to allow same-sex parents' names to be listed on their children's birth certificates without a court order. The majority ruling of the Court said the names on certificates should be based on biology. The dissenting opinion of the Court pointed out the declaration of "husband" in relation to the mother suggests the law requires names on the documents to be based on relationship status, not biology. Photo by LadyDragonflyCC/Flickr.com
The Arkansas Supreme Court overruled a lower court's ruling to allow same-sex parents' names to be listed on their children's birth certificates without a court order. The majority ruling of the Court said the names on certificates should be based on biology. The dissenting opinion of the Court pointed out the declaration of "husband" in relation to the mother suggests the law requires names on the documents to be based on relationship status, not biology. Photo by LadyDragonflyCC/Flickr.com

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The Arkansas State Supreme Court sided with the state's Department of Health, overruling a lower court's decision to allow the names of same-sex parents to be listed on birth certificates without a court order.

The state's Supreme Court ruled that only the names of a child's biological parents should be listed on birth certificates, striking down Pulasky County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Davis' ruling that same-sex parents have a Constitutional right to their names being on their children's birth certificates.

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The case was brought by three married lesbian couples whose children were conceived using anonymous sperm donors. Their children were denied health insurance because their insurers require a parent to be listed on their child's birth certificate to prove the parent-child relationship.

"The question presented in this case does not concern either the right to same-sex marriage or the recognition of that marriage, or the right of a female same-sex spouse to be a parent to the child who was born to her spouse," Justice Josephine Linker Hart wrote in the Court's majority opinion. "In the situation involving the female spouse of a biological mother, the female spouse does not have the same biological nexus to the child that the biological mother or the biological father has. It does not violate equal protection to acknowledge basic biological truths."

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The argument from the state's Department of Health, which is who the suit was filed against, is that listing biological parents' names on the birth certificate is important for identifying "public health trends, and it can be critical to an individual's identification of personal health issues and genetic conditions."

Justice Paul Danielson, who wrote the Court's dissenting opinion, said the majority was wrong because state law requires the husband of the mother to be listed on a birth certificate -- a relationship based on marriage, not biology. By that definition, he wrote, a same-sex spouse who has a relationship with the mother listed on the birth certificate should be named, not the biological parent.

"There can be no reasonable dispute that the inclusion of a parent's name on a child's birth certificate is a benefit associated with and flowing from marriage," Danielson wrote.

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