Quebec's recent court ruling has granted legal rights to poly-parental families in the province that are equal to those of other family units.

Judge of the Quebec Superior Court ruled on Friday that restricting a child's legal relationship to one or two parents is unconstitutional.

Image from the Internet

Marc-André Landry, the lawyer representing one of the families in this case, explained that this ruling does not apply to step-parents or other "modern" families formed after the child's birth.

Rather, it applies to situations where multiple adults were involved in a relationship before the child was conceived.

In other words, Landry pointed out that a "parenting plan" needs to be in place before the child is created.

"This is not about step-parents or other potential situations; it’s about three people sitting together saying, 'We should have a child together,'" he explained. "No one should be treated differently based on their family status."

According to Landry, the case involves three families.

The first is a "throuple," involving three adults (one man and two women) with four children.

The second case involves a lesbian couple and a male donor who wishes to participate in the child's life as a father.

The third involves a woman with infertility who had a child with a friend of hers, who later requested to continue being a mother.

"Regardless of what others think, these families do exist," Landry said, calling this move a "significant" change in our collective legal understanding. "From a legal perspective, the family relationships of these children do not match their reality."

Landry compared Friday's ruling to the changes in public perception of same-sex families in the 1980s and 1990s.

"The law has evolved, and same-sex families do exist and are accepted, which is no longer an issue in Canada," he said. "It’s the same here. The law needs to evolve to accommodate the realities of all Canadian citizens and the infants who did not choose to be born into poly-parental families. They must enjoy the same protection and rights as other infants."

Landry noted that poly-parental families already have legal status in several other provinces in Canada, including Ontario and British Columbia.

The Quebec government currently has 12 months to amend the Civil Code to comply with this ruling.

While there may indeed be individual special cases where multiple parental roles appear in the same family, isn't this legal right also setting a precedent?

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7501736718895153664/

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