Opinion ID: 6355971
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Court's Responsibility

Text: ¶ 40. Like the dissent, we encourage the Legislature to take action in this area. But, the Legislature's inaction to date is not an impediment to our own obligation to resolve the specific cases before us by developing a consistent and coherent approach to defining parenthood within the construct that the Legislature has given us and our prior case law; in fact, it creates a more urgent need for us to act. ¶ 41. The contrast between the dissent's suggestion that needed reform in this area must come from the Legislature, and this Court's previous explanations of our responsibilities, is striking. In Miller-Jenkins , this Court concluded that the parentage statute does not define who is a parent, but instead leav[es] it to the courts to define who is a parent for purposes of a parentage adjudication. 2006 VT 78 , ¶ 54, 180 Vt. 441 , 912 A.2d 951 . The Court explained that the term 'parent' is specific to the context of the family involved, id. ¶ 55, and sought to define the term with reference to the case before it. In doing so, the Court recognized that the Legislature had not addressed the particular circumstances it was facing, and acknowledged that the courts must define and protect the rights and interests of the children that are part of families that have not yet been addressed by the Legislature. Id. ¶ 52. In doing so, the Court repeated its commitment, in the absence of legislative guidance, to develop theories of parenthood to protect the welfare of children. ¶ 42. If this particular case was all that was at stake, then notwithstanding the potentially heartbreaking and destructive outcome for the children involved in this case, the dissent's reluctance to engage might be understandable. But this is just one of a wide variety of cases that we will undoubtedly see in the coming years. Surrogacy of various stripes (involving genetic material from one or both intended parents, the gestational carrier's egg and donor sperm, donor egg and sperm, or various such combinations) is increasingly common and can involve gay and straight couples as well as individuals. Many gay  and straight individuals and couples, like the couple in this case, bring children into their families through adoptions that do not fit the paradigm to which courts are most accustomed. Some women and men opt for single parenthood. Some family structures incorporate more than two parents. Families are evolving, and we will no doubt continue to be asked to decide cases involving a variety of family structures. In the absence of statutory guidance, we need a coherent vision of parenthood and family to guide our case-by-case consideration of these various circumstances-or at least a rule that promotes the best interests of children in cases like this in which parents jointly agree to bring a child into their family and co-parent together. ¶ 43. To fill the statutory void, and until the Legislature acts, the concept of an intended parent, implicitly recognized in Miller-Jenkins , suggests a broader rubric that may help us grapple with many of these future cases predictably and in the best interests of children, without relying on ad hoc decisionmaking that would provide limited predictability and could potentially be influenced by the perceived merits of the individual parents, and putative parents, before us. 7 ¶ 44. We continue to urge the Legislature to take action in this realm, and hope that the study commissioned by the Legislature and cited by the dissent, post , ¶ 59, leads to the enactment of statutory revisions that render this decision, and others cited above, obsolete. The global perspective, consideration of extensive empirical evidence, and public input and accountability of the legislative process are better suited than case-by-case adjudications to developing a coherent law of parental status. But today we have a live case before us, and our statutory guidance is what it is. In the absence of legislative guidance, we must resolve these cases with the tools that we have. These cases involve real families who need to resolve their conflicts today. Our constitutional responsibility to consider the legal merits of issues properly before us provides no exception for the controversial case. Baker v. State , 170 Vt. 194 , 197, 744 A.2d 864 , 867 (1999). The dismissal of petitioner's claims with respect to G.P. is affirmed. The dismissal of this case with respect to M.P. is reversed, and the matter is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion .