Mum gets custody

It is a battle of Biblical proportions, perhaps even invoking the wisdom of Solomon.

"Two Sydney women who had a long-term relationship have started a custody battle for a three-year-old boy conceived through donor insemination.
The non-biological mother claims she has been the psychological and emotional parent since the boy was born, and that he has spent more time with her in the years since the couple separated. The looming Family Court battle highlights a dilemma in lesbian relationships where both women may agree to have a child, and raise it together, but only one can give birth. Under NSW law the partner who does not bear the child has no legal rights as a parent.
Nici Clayhills, solicitor for the non-biological mother, said homosexuals had progressed since the 1970s from fighting for rights to recognise difference, to fighting to be accepted as normal. 'That involves wanting the mortgage, the dog, the child and the marriage'...." http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mum-v-mum-the-new-custody-battle/2005/09/06/1125772527452.html

Now what can be more normal than love, marriage, divorce and custody dispute? People are people everywhere you go, and none of them are so different from the rest of us once you strip away the trappings. Yessss, certainly different; but not so different.

As is so often the case, California is a step or two ahead of Australia on this subject. See, "The California Supreme Court Considers Three Broken-Up Lesbian Partnerships, And Finds, In Each, That A Child Can Have Two Mothers" which reports on a case which held "a lesbian partner who agrees, with her partner, to bring a child into the world, but is not the child's biological mother, has the same rights and obligations as other legal parents...." http://writ.news.findlaw.com/grossman/20050906.html