Hello & Happy Friday!   I am in Montreal where it is rainy and gloomy (yuck!), but enjoying a great ABA convention.  Today just one legal update on Montana and an issue the industry is currently struggling with.

Montana – Montana State Supreme Court uphold same sex parentage via Proud Parenting. 

“The Montana Supreme Court has upheld a woman’s custody rights to the two children her same-sex partner adopted during their relationship.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday backed District Judge Ed McLean’s ruling last year that granted Michelle Kulstad joint custody of the two children — a 9-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl.

The children were adopted by Kulstad’s former partner, Barbara Maniaci, in 2001 and 2004. State law does not allow both members of a same-sex partnership to adopt.

After the relationship ended, Kulstad filed in January 2007 to receive parenting rights. Maniaci, who is now married to a man, filed a motion to dismiss Kulstad’s petition.

“Maniaci cannot rewrite the history of the fact that she and Kulstad lived together for more than 10 years and jointly raised the minor children in the same household,” Justice Brian Morris wrote in the court’s 6-1 opinion.”

Worldwide Issue – Todd Essig asks the question: Infertility treatments: Do we need to protect women from themselves?  He asks, as have I, should we allow women to sell their eggs and/or their wombs for that matter to the highest bidder when they are fully informed, even someone who is economically desperate?  In fact, as I posted earlier this month, one expert in the UK called egg donors prostitutes.  Well, besides that comment, should we protect women from themselves? 

Or, should we allow all persons, men and women, to make their own informed decisions?  Mr. Essig even goes on to say that we “need to stop being so squeamish about women using their bodies for their own perceived benefit.”  And, I say, let’s stop being paternalistic.  And, as Mr. Essig stated, what about people working in “coal mines or as a field hand on a chemical farm?”  Isnt that MUCH more dangerous than donating eggs or being a surrogate?  What say you?

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