Legal Question in Family Law in California

Second parent adoption is permitted in California, but it is cumbersome. The child has to be born before you can start the process, and you have to go through a state approval process that can be long, slow, and expensive. Many LGBT couples are opting instead for a Uniform Parentage Act proceeding to establish parentage. Although not expressly provided for in the UPA, many local California courts are accepting the analysis that the holdings of Johnson v. Calvert (establishing the intended parents as legal parents over their contract gestational carrier (formerly called a "surrogate mother")), and In re: Marriage of Buzzanca (holding intent to bring about a pregnancy and cooperation in initiating and carrying out a medical procedure to bring about pregnancy with the intent of being the parent of the resulting child prevails in determining parentage, over a literalist interpretation of the UPA) to hold that unmarried LGBT couples are the legal parents of the child they bring into the world. The two main advantages of the UPA petition to establish parentage are that it can be done before the child is born, and does not require a state childrens services investigation. Judges in San Francisco have approved UPA petitions under this analysis.