LC v. MG

While LC—a U.S. Navy officer—was deployed overseas, her wife MG became pregnant by assisted reproduction. MG had not sought LC’s consent to having a child, or to the assisted reproduction procedure. LC was not present for the birth of the child in Hawaii. They share no biological connection. LC has never met the child. However, LC’s name was included by MG on the birth certificate as “co-parent” without LC’s consent. Hawaii’s Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) provides that “[a] man is presumed to be the natural father of a child if . . . [h]e and the child’s natural mother are or have been married to each other and the child is born during the marriage. . . .” The unanimous Hawaii Supreme Court held that under the UPA and Hawaii’s marriage equality act, the term “father” includes both men and women. Because LC and MG were in a valid marriage at the time of the child’s birth, LC was presumed to be the child’s legal parent. But a bare majority of the court also concluded that the statute did not permit LC to rebut the presumption of paternity by introducing evidence that she did not consent to her wife having a child. The question presented is: Does the Fourteenth Amendment require that a spouse, who is presumed to be the parent of a child because she is married to the child’s natural mother, be able to rebut that presumption with evidence she did not consent to having the child?