Modern life stretching family law

John Huddleston isn't married to Margaret Torres and never has been. Both of them agree he's not the father of her 3-year-old boy.

But that's where their agreement ends. Mr. Huddleston has filed a lawsuit arguing that he should have visitation rights, based on a voluntary paternity form he signed when the child was born, and on his commitment to caring for the boy. But Ms. Torres no longer wants him involved in her family life.

Welcome to parenting law, 21st-century style. Things have changed a lot since the days when the typical conundrum involved verifying the identity of a father. From California to Pennsylvania, other cases are rivaling or exceeding Huddleston's in complexity.

The legal tangle is driven by converging technological and social forces: the rise of surrogates and egg or sperm donors; same-sex parenting; grandparents or even nonrelatives who act in caregiving roles.

As courts grapple with evolving definitions of family, experts say the result is a growing foothold for relatively new legal principles: "de facto" and even "psychological" parenthood, and the importance of weighing the intent of those involved in a child's conception and birth.

"Courts are more willing now to try and think creatively about the issues of parenthood and family because [nontraditional arrangements] are a much more common thing," says David Meyer, a family law expert at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "Family law cases, which for a long time were regarded as not very interesting from a theoretical point of view, are becoming much more complex."

Consider a few recent cases:

• In California, a woman had twins using an egg her lesbian partner donated. For six years, the two raised the girls as a family, sharing responsibilities and listing both women as mothers on official forms. When they split up, the birth mother took the twins to Massachusetts, and the egg donor discovered she had no rights; the standard hospital form she signed, meant for anonymous donors, included a statement relinquishing parenthood. The California Supreme Court will decide this month if it will review the decision.

• Also in California, a woman last week won a $1 million lawsuit against the fertility clinic which implanted her with the wrong embryo, mistakenly giving her one created using another client's sperm (rather than sperm donated anonymously) instead of an embryo from two anonymous donors. She learned of the error after her son was born, and has been engaged in a custody battle ever since. The sperm donor and his wife - who had another child from the same batch of embryos - insist the boy is their son. The woman who bore him considers him hers. A judge declared her the mother, the sperm donor the father, and the donor's wife no relation.

• In Pennsylvania, four different people are claiming to be the parents of triplets born last November: the surrogate, the egg donor, and the couple who hired the surrogate. So far, the judge has given the surrogate mother primary custody, though a final decision is still pending.

• In the Illinois case, Torres asked Huddleston, a former boyfriend, to sign a voluntary paternity form even though there was no possibility the boy was his. Huddleston gave the boy his last name, helped with some finances, and saw him several days a week for two years. Now, the mother wants to cut off the relationship.

Faced with these puzzles, a number of state court systems have accepted the controversial concept of "de facto" parenthood. "Psychological parenthood" - a still more nebulous notion - has taken hold in a few states, notably New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. It refers to a person who isn't biologically related but has had custody for a certain length of time and has a parent-like bond.

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