Pennsylvania Supreme Court Adopts a New Pathway to Establish Legal Parenthood

On March 20, 2025, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recognized a new pathway to establish the parental rights of non-biological parents: the doctrine of intent-based parentage.

The case involved a same-sex couple, Chanel Glover and Nicole Junior, who were married in January of 2021. Before their marriage, they made the decision for Ms. Glover to conceive a child using a sperm donor. After they married, they entered into contracts with a fertility clinic and a sperm bank and began the process to confirm Ms. Junior’s parental rights through an adoption after the child’s birth. However, the spouses broke up before the child was born, and Ms. Glover decided that she no longer wished to proceed with the adoption.

On April 27, 2022, Ms. Junior filed a petition for special relief and an emergency petition to confirm her parentage of the unborn child and to grant her custodial rights. The next day, the trial court entered an order confirming Ms. Junior as the legal parent of the child and ordering, among other things, that both parties would have access to the child and that Ms. Junior’s name would appear on the child’s birth certificate as a parent.

On appeal, the Superior Court upheld the trial court's decision, holding that Ms. Junior established parentage through contract principles, equitable estoppel, and intent-based parentage – the latter of which being a new and novel pathway to establish legal parentage.

The case was then appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which held that none of the four existing pathways to establish legal parentage applied to the facts of this case. Instead, the Court adopted a doctrine of intent-based parentage into Pennsylvania common law. The Court’s decision recognized that the parties' mutual intent to conceive and raise the child together, as evidenced by their actions and signed agreements, established Ms. Junior's parentage. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania stated that this doctrine aligns with the Commonwealth’s public policy and the ever-evolving concept of family.

The Court’s opinion specifically recommends that non-biological parents seek confirmatory adoptions to ensure their parental rights are recognized in other jurisdictions. However, this decision is a victory for same-sex parents in our Commonwealth, as it opens the door to another pathway to parenthood – intent.