How a new custody law in New York could change the legal concept of a family

In the US, the question of what it is to be a parent is being addressed right now.

Not in a metaphysical sense, but in a legal one. Two women argue about a foster child, and The New Yorker explains how this case could become a precedent that changed the legal concept of the family.

52-year-old Manhattan resident Kelly Gunn went to court last September to discourage her partner, 45-year-old Serk Hamilton, from moving to London with their 7-year-old son, whom Hamilton adopted in Ethiopia in 2011.

The woman went to court to prove her right to raise a child and was considered as the legal parent of the child.

Gann and Hamilton had same-sex relationships in 2004, when they began the process of adopting a child.

But in December of 2009, they broke up, and Hamilton decided to continue the adoption procedures alone.

They remained close, and when Hamilton went to Ethiopia to pick up Abush, Gunn met her and the boy in London to fly back together to Manhattan.

When Hamilton, a freelance photographer, returned to her small apartment in the West Village, she said that she was overwhelmed with the problems of raising children, and Gunn, who ran a successful design company, was rescued.

Court documents show that Gunn was constantly with the child and went to the doctors with him. And in 2012, she agreed to become a godmother.

Women continued from time to time to stay together in a house on Fire Island, which they once owned. Hamilton said that Gunn is simply acting as her friend, not as a co-parent.

In court, Gann argued that since the adoption plan and the process itself was launched while the couple was in a relationship, Gann deserves the legal status of a parent. Hamilton, in turn, argues that their adoption plan ended at the moment when the couple broke up, and the role of Gunn in the boy's life resembled the role of the godmother or close friend.

Gunn nevertheless decided to continue to fight for his parental rights thanks to the new expanded definition of parenthood in New York. The guardianship legislation in the case of same-sex and other non-traditional mechanisms for raising children after the decision of the State Court of Appeal states that a child who is not related by family to the adoptive guardian may still claim custody and rights to meet with the child. For this, he must prove that he helped raise the child.

Historical decision known as Brooke SB, It was signed by Judge Sheila Abdus-Salam, the first African-American woman in court, who was found dead in the Hudson River.

At the last meeting of the Supreme Court of Manhattan in April of this year, Judge Frank Nervo ruled that Gann did not play a sufficient role to adopt and raise a child with Hamilton.

The judge said that even despite the fact that the women were discussing the adoption of a child together, by the time Hamilton had passed through the adoption process, the couple had already broken up.

And before that, Gann “repeatedly stated that she did not want to be a parent,” according to the statement of Judge Nervo.

Lawyer Gunn expects to appeal this decision.

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