Outdated Laws Left a Mother Powerless at Newborn’s NICU Bedside

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At just 29 weeks pregnant, Emily was rushed to the hospital for an emergency C-section after weeks of complications. She saw her newborn baby, Ava, for just one blurry moment before being sedated for an emergency hysterectomy.

Emily’s wife and Ava’s other parent, Colleen, was terrified as the doctors whisked Ava to the NICU and Emily into surgery. But Colleen was ready to authorize any emergency medical decisions Ava needed to save her life.

There was just one problem: her state’s laws didn’t recognize Colleen as Ava’s legal parent. Even though Colleen and Emily carefully planned for Ava for months and Colleen loved her deeply, Colleen learned that she could not legally make any decisions for her baby or even enter the NICU.

Baby Ava was fighting for her life with two loving mothers who desperately wanted to welcome her into their family. But because of an outdated law, Ava was vulnerable without a legally recognized parent to make medical decisions for her in the earliest moments of her life.

Luckily for Ava, the hospital staff did the right thing and chose to let Colleen into the NICU.

But Ava’s health in her first moments should never have depended on the luck of who was on staff that day. Had Colleen and Emily gone to a different hospital, the story could have ended with Ava alone without her loving parent.

As a family law attorney, I hear stories like this all the time. Most people assume that when you become a parent, your relationship to your child is automatically protected under the law. But in many cases, that’s simply not true.

There are many pathways to becoming a parent, including genetic connection, adoption, and through fertility health care with a spouse or partner, like Colleen did in planning for her child with Emily.

But many states haven’t updated family recognition laws in decades, so they don’t reflect the reality of how families are formed today. State laws often overlook families built through fertility care, even though approximately 1 in 6 people experience infertility and may need medical assistance to build a family. And outdated laws can exclude families where a child does not have a biological connection to one or both parents.

This outdated patchwork of laws leaves many children and families without the security they need to thrive.

When our laws fail to recognize a child’s parent, it’s the child who pays the price.

Without clear legal recognition, families can face serious, real-world harms. Children can be left unprotected in an emergency, without a legally recognized parent able to make urgent medical decisions. Children can be separated from their family if a parent dies and lose access to a parent’s health insurance, financial support or survivor benefits. And children can be denied their inheritance and face barriers enrolling in school or accessing basic services.

When laws are outdated, some parents need to adopt their own children, a legal process that can take weeks, months, or even years to complete, leaving a child unprotected and costing financial resources that could otherwise go to supporting the baby's needs.

And the reality is, these options aren’t available to every parent. Adoption is expensive. Family law attorneys can cost hundreds of dollars per hour, and the hours pile up quickly.

Take Rachel, a mom who could not safely carry a pregnancy after her battle with cancer. Rachel and her husband dreamed of having another child, and surrogacy was their best option to grow their family. But when their first daughter was born, surrogacy agreements were banned in Michigan. As a result they had to spend two years and significant resources to adopt their own child.

That’s why states should update their family recognition laws to align with the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017 (UPA), an expert-backed model used across the country to protect children. The UPA provides clear, equal pathways for children to have legally recognized relationships with the parents who love and care for them from the start.

Some states have already taken this important step to protect children, including most recently Delaware, but many still have outdated laws that leave children vulnerable.

Every child deserves to know that in a hospital room, a school office, or a moment of crisis, the law will recognize the parents they already know and depend on. It’s time for all states to protect children.

Polly Cozier is the Director of Family Advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), where her work includes updating state laws to protect children and families.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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