Sperm donor given parental rights over child born to lesbian couple in Oklahoma

The known sperm donor for a child born to a lesbian couple has been granted parental rights over a child following a legal battle after the couple's divorce.

The lesbian couple, Rebekah Wilson and Kris Williams, had been raising the boy together for over two years, after they married during the pregnancy. The child had been born to Wilson, the gestational and genetic mother of the child, following intrauterine insemination (IUI) using a known sperm donor, Harlan Vaughn, a gay friend. In 2021, the couple sought a divorce, and Wilson started a relationship with, moved in with, and had another child with the sperm donor Vaughn, who now possesses parental rights over the child following a ruling by Oklahoma Country District Judge Lynne McGuire. She ruled that as Williams had not given birth to the child nor adopted it, she was unable to remain the legal parent.

'The reality is that the law provides a legal remedy available to Williams. She knowingly chose not to pursue it.' wrote Judge McGuire.

This was because, under Oklahoma's Uniform Parentage Act, parent-child relationships are defined by birth or adoption. So, IUI, the method of conception of the child, does not establish Williams as the mother unless she had adopted the child. This is a law that Ms Williams knew about, but chose not to act upon, the judge said. The court found the original sperm donor agreement signed by Wilson and Vaughn did not mention Williams. It stated that Wilson and the child would, alone, constitute a 'family'. Wilson and Vaughn chose to terminate the original agreement in writing in February 2022 after deciding they didn't think it was legally valid.

Williams had first been removed as the second mother from the child's birth certificate at the couple's divorce hearing in Oklahoma City in January 2022, and replaced with Vaughn as the father, 19th News reported.

'My body instantly started shaking,' Williams said of when she heard news of the ruling. 'I mean pure terror, as a queer person, to be erased.'

This ruling had been reversed in court the following month, but she did not have parental rights over the child. This latest ruling on 13 February 2023 reasserted the court's findings that she did not have parental rights. That brings into question whether presumed parental rights exist for couples who entered a same-sex marriage in the same way they do for heterosexual couples, lawyers have argued.

William's and her attorney, Robyn Hopkins are currently appealing the ruling to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, with Hopkins stating, 'show me where the case law says that gay people have to adopt their own children? Why do gay people have to have a home study and a background check to adopt their own children and pay upwards of a couple of thousand dollars and go to court to make it official?'