Category: Child Custody

Gestational Surrogacy Contracts :-)

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Child Custody on Thursday, September 20, 2012.

According to the Associated Press, on Sept. 19, 1982, the smiley emoticon was invented by professor Scott E. Fahlman, who proposed punctuating humorous computer messages by creating this:

🙂

Which of course led to this

🙂 🙂 :] =] =) :^) :?), and sadly, this 🙁 🙁 :-c :-< :-[ :[ :{

Just as new technologies – such as reproductive technologies – bring new benefits, they can bring new types of child custody cases. Consider this English woman’s concerns reported in the Daily Mail:

A married woman whose husband donated sperm without her knowledge is calling for clinics to be forced to ask for a wife’s consent . . . and says the sperm should be treated as a ‘marital asset’.

Putting aside the question of whether sperm is marital property, Florida does protect surrogacy, and has comprehensive laws protecting the baby, intended parents, the egg donor and the surrogate.

For example, Florida allows commissioning couples to enter gestational surrogacy contracts in which a surrogate relinquishes her parental rights. Gestational surrogacy contracts are reviewed by courts to confirm that they are in accordance with Florida law, and for a birth certificate to be issued. But, problems can arise. Consider a recent Florida case involving lesbian partners:

Two women decided to have a baby, paid a reproductive doctor to withdraw ova from one of them, fertilize them, and implant the fertilized ova into the other partner. The procedure worked, and a child was conceived to a birth mother and a biological mother. Two years later the mothers separated, and the birth mother severed the biological mother’s contact with the child.

If the biological mom is simply an egg donor under Florida law, her parental rights are relinquished. If she isn’t a donor, she’s entitled to parental rights. So, what are the biological mom’s rights? At least in one Florida case, the biological mom was found to be entitled to her parental rights, and did not statutorily relinquish them.

The outcome in that one Florida appellate case may not be followed in other appellate districts, so a consultation with a family law expert is advised.

Do I Need Divorce Therapy?

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Child Custody on Saturday, July 28, 2012.

Negotiating child custody, support, and the division of assets is strongly tied to emotions, and if your head is not in the game – because you are still overcome by swirling emotions – your attempts at settlement may fail. I see this happen frequently: a client, or their spouse, cannot make a rational decision because their anger, sadness or suspicion is too much to overcome. When that happens, the only alternative is to go to court.

You may have heard that therapy can help couples save a marriage. But, did you know more and more people are relying on therapists to help guide them through the grueling process of a divorce? I suggest to clients early on in my representation to seek out a good therapist to help them through the divorce process. They can help you overcome your emotions, as well as create timesharing schedules and more.

I remember reading about Elana Katz, the director of the Family and Divorce Mediation Program at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, in a New York Times article.

We used mediation, so we did not go through the adversarial nightmare and did a lot that set up a structure that was going to make us both highly involved parents. There was not going to be winner-take-all.

Katz discussed how therapy helped her through her own divorce. Let’s face it, if professionals in the business know to hire a good therapist, shouldn’t you? It is important for couples to find post-divorce parenting roles and be able to predict finances. Having a professional therapist go through each stage of the process carefully can help you develop new relationships, and understand future goals.

In Child Custody Cases, Stay-At-Home Dads Are Here to Stay

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Child Custody on Thursday, July 12, 2012.

Parenting Plans, and specifically timesharing, is increasingly more complex as parenting roles reverse. Time magazine reports that the proportion of stay-at-home dads has doubled in the past decade, and not because fathers got laid off and had nothing better to do:

“The percentage of stay-at-home fellas has doubled in the past decade, though it’s still tiny: just 3.4% of stay-at-home parents are fathers. But man, are those guys happy. Perhaps the joy they take in doling out Cheerios and doing loads of baby laundry is merely additional evidence of the inordinate pleasure that men take in parenting, a phenomenon discussed on Thursday on Healthland.”

“It’s clear to us that men strongly identify with this as a role,” says Brad Harrington, executive director of the Boston College Center for Work and Family and lead author of the stay-at-home dads report. “They don’t have a feeling of ambivalence of, What am I doing, I’m a man. There is no sense of angst. These guys strongly identified with being a SAHD. They are proud of it.”