Minnesota lawmakers fiddle with meaning of 'parent'

[Valin]

Mpls Star Tribune:

The Legislature’s proposed allowance for up to six adults to claim biological parentage of the same child takes the marriage debate to a new level.

RYAN C. MACPHERSON

March 25, 2013

 

As the cliché would have it, “You can’t legislate morality.” But some Minnesota lawmakers think they can legislate biology instead.

 

The interaction of two bills introduced in the Legislature this session defies the facts of Biology 101. A “biological parent,” as crafted in SF370 and SF925, would no longer include only the birth mother and the man who got her pregnant, but potentially six persons.

 

The Legislature’s proposed allowance for up to six adults to claim biological parentage of the same child takes the marriage debate to a new level. No longer will people be asking whether every child has the right to a mom and a dad — or whether same-sex couples can raise children just as well as opposite-sex couples. Now a child can have up to six persons whom the law will recognize as “presumptive biological parents.”

 

Presumptive, indeed.

 

Here’s how the old-fashioned system worked, and still works in Minnesota today. The law calls a woman who gives birth to a child the “biological mother” of that child. The law calls a man who is currently married to her, or at least was married to her at the time of conception, the “presumptive biological father” of that child. If pregnancy resulted from relations with a man not married to the mother, the law has clear procedures for identifying who the biological father is. This is quite important, since fundamental legal rights and responsibilities concerning children flow from biological parentage.

 

But a handful of legislators want to change this legal recognition of the most basic biological relationship.

 

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

Yes you should be having a shooting pain in your head and an almost uncontrollable desire to bang your head against a wall.

[clearvision]

I have heard it takes a village to raise a child.....