Co-parents ‘should seek legal advice’

A GLBT family law expert has warned gay and lesbian couples to seek legal advice and counselling before entering into a co-parenting arrangement.

Paul Boers made the comments after the Family Court of Australia ruled on a conflict between a lesbian couple and a gay male couple after their co-parenting arrangement broke down.

One of the men, a long-time friend of the birth mother, provided sperm for the women to conceive a child with the understanding they were to play a role in the child’s life. Before conception the couples met to work out an agreement about the men’s involvement.

At the meeting they agreed the men would initially play a limited role in the child’s life. Their role would grow until the child would spend equal time with both couples. However, within months of the birth in 2008, the women felt the arrangement wasn’t working.

When the men came to believe the women were creating obstacles to their spending time with the child, they initiated proceedings in the Federal Magistrates Court in Melbourne.

The Magistrates Court provided the men with an interim order providing for specified time during the day to be spent with the child. The matter was then transferred to the Family Court.

Family Court judge Linda Dessau ruled that the women continue as the child’s primary carers, but when he starts school, he should spend each third weekend with the men and a portion of his school holidays.

Boers urged couples entering co-parenting relationships to seek advice.

“We get a lot of enquiries involving either gay male couples or single men entering into co-parenting arrangements with lesbian couples,” he said.

“The concern for lesbian couples, if merely obtaining a sperm donation, is often ‘Will he come back and seek to have a greater role and seek parenting orders?’.

“You cannot guarantee that will never happen but the advice always is that the sperm donor is not deemed the parent of a child.

“For guys entering into co-parenting arrangements the concern is ‘What if it all falls apart?’. You can apply for parenting orders but you have to establish your concern for the care, welfare and development of the child.”

Boers advised all parties to seek counselling so they fully understood the responsibilities they were to have towards a child, and that a court order, obtained as soon as a child was born, was the safest way to establish roles for sperm donors.