Freedom Oklahoma Statement on Parental Rights for Non-Gestational 2SLGBTQ+ Parents

February 24, 2022

OKLAHOMA CITY – In response to a temporary ruling in Oklahoma County creates uncertainty around parental rights for non-gestational parents,  Freedom Oklahoma issued the following statement: 

The following is attributable to Nicole McAfee, Freedom Oklahoma Executive Director: 

While many eyes are on attacks for 2SLGBTQ+ rights and liberties at the Oklahoma Legislature, our team is also aware of a possible trend impacting the rights of 2SLGBTQ+ parents who are non-gestational carriers in Oklahoma Courts. A temporary order in a pending case in front of Judge McGuire in Oklahoma County suggests that despite the intentionally planned pregnancy and parenting of a child between two queer parents, both of whom appear on the birth certificate, that the non-gestational parent does not have parental rights because they did not take another expensive and arbitrary step to engage in more legal paperwork in a court system that was never designed with 2SLGBTQ+ people in mind. While we cannot speak to the very personal pieces of the case related to the divorce, we can firmly say that no 2SLGBTQ+ person should risk losing their child simply because they are not the gestational parent. Parents and children alike deserve the certainty that their rights and relationships won’t be rewritten by the courts, just because when given the opportunity, the legal system reverts to heteronormative, ableist definitions of what constitutes a parent.