ABSTRACT
The marriage equality ruling presented a clear path for same-sex married couples to create families by providing the social recognition and necessary legal structure for couples. This includes creating families through the U.S. child welfare foster care and adoption system, private and international adoption, and assisted reproductive technology (ART). This chapter identifies and describes the various options for same-sex couples and singles to create families and the legal obstacles to creating and securing a family. Key legal cases are analyzed on adoption recognition in all 50 states (V.L. v. E.L. 2016), securing birth certificates for couples utilizing ART (Pavan v. Smith, 2017; Strickland v. Day, 2018; and Roe v. Patton, 2015), and birth right citizenship for couples using international surrogacy (Mize v. Pompeo, 2019; Kiviti v. Pompeo, 2020).
