Arizona Supreme Court in McLaughlin v. Jones was asked an increasingly familiar question: Does the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which held that it was unconstitutional for states to withhold the right to marry from same-sex couples, mean that male and female spouses must be presumed the legal parents of children born during the marriage? This court, unlike some others, answered a simple question with a simple answer: Yes. Let me explain the straightforward way in which the court reached that result.
Kimberly and Suzan legally married in California in 2008 and decided to have a family. Suzan unsuccessfully attempted to become pregnant with donor sperm, Kimberly successfully conceived and gave birth to a son in 2011. The two women entered into a joint parenting agreement in which Kimberly agreed that she intended her wife to be an equal parent, sharing all rights and responsibilities for their son. After the child’s birth, Kimberly returned to work as a physician, while Suzan stayed home as the primary caregiver. But when the two women broke up, Kimberly moved out of the joint home, with the child in tow.
