Court Opinion

ID: 9574757
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:07:48.454888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:56.111834
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority recognizes, as it must, that Charles has no statutory right to intrude into the Skiles’ family structure, or to challenge the parental status established under Iowa Code section 252A.3(4) (child born to married person “shall be deemed the legitimate child ... of both parents”), or in Code section 144.13(2) (husband’s name shall be entered on birth certificate as father). The majority then obviates the obvious result of its correct statutory interpretation by subscribing to the dissent in Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110, 109 S.Ct. 2333, 105 L.Ed.2d 91 (1989). I strongly agree with the plurality holding in Michael H. and with those courts, cited by the majority, that subscribe to it.
In positing its recognition of Charles’ liberty interest to challenge paternity, the majority relies on our holding in In re B.G.C., 496 N.W.2d 239 (Iowa 1992). B.G.C. does not require us to yield to the liberty interest *193claimed here. The biological father in B.G.C. was not assailing an existing family. Some may contend a “liberty interest” should arise to one who conceives a child by a married woman who was — and remains — married. It should not arise, at least it should not prevail, here. For good and sufficient reasons, society has traditionally considered a child born to a married couple to be the legitimate child of both. This view is reflected in Iowa Code section 252A.3(4).
Family relationships do not rest exclusively on shared genes. A child puts down its family roots on the basis of environment, and the resulting ties deserve the law’s protection. This remains true even in an age that has known assaults on nearly all of society’s institutions, including the family. It strikes me as unwise to set up a court process in order to undo a recognized family structure. Even the biological father, who is after all an outsider to the family, should not be allowed to invade it.
The majority is misled into its holding because it already knows of the biological relationship. The process authorized by the majority, in claims to be sorted out in future cases, will include many false ones where a husband-and-wife relationship will be outrageously disturbed in defending against such a suit.
A biological claim should not alone justify unwrapping a parent-child relationship established within a family. A predatory rapist could make the same biological claim this plaintiff does, a point made in Michael H. See Michael H., 491 U.S. at 124-25 n. 4, 109 S.Ct. at 2342 n. 4, 105 L.Ed.2d at 106-07 n. 4.
I would affirm.
McGIVERIN, C.J., and LARSON and NEUMAN, JJ., join this dissent.