A judge in Buenos Aires has issued a ruling that legally recognizes the right of a polyamorous family to have their baby registered with two fathers and one mother, according to Merco Press.
National Civil Court No. 7 Judge Myriam Cataldi of the City of Buenos Aires authorized that a child conceived through assisted fertilization be registered under the right to non-discrimination on the grounds of triple filiation or filial registry polyamory since the baby was procreated in a laboratory by joining the gamete of one of the men and the woman.
The two men have been living together since 2018 and wanted to become fathers, but they did not want to opt for surrogacy or adoption. They followed the co-parenting model by forming a family with a woman with the same filial desire. The male couple created a website to search for a like-minded female candidate until one showed up to their liking.
Judge rules part of Article 558 was unconstitutional
They interviewed her online, and soon a face-to-face meeting ensued. Once all the parties agreed to the set-up, they arranged everything and took their case to the courts. The judge decreed the last paragraph of Article 558 of the Civil Code was unconstitutional despite opposition from the Civil Registry and the Public Ministry and granted the petition filed before her.
The judge said in her ruling that it is not taking away the value of the genetic load of each one, but displacing the importance of the relationships that before were given only by blood ties towards the heart of love and solidarity. She added that the Court has pointed out that the American Convention does not establish a closed concept of family, nor does it protect only one particular family model.
Judge argues paternity and maternity should not be static
Cataldi said that reality demonstrates daily that not every family has a mother or a father figure. That being the case, this does not prevent the family from providing the necessary well-being for the development of their children.
She added in her ruling that guaranteeing the child's best interests implies effectively protecting the right to a filiation in accordance with the volitional reality expressed by all participants of the family life project, in which they will be included as one of the family.
Cataldi said the possibility of revising the biologicist paradigm of filiation, added to the necessary deconstruction of filial binarism, implies raising issues of such rupture, as at the time were same-sex marriages and adoption by same-sex couples. The judge then argued that paternity and maternity should not only be objective and static concepts, where the affective component is legally irrelevant.
According to WebMD, polyamory refers to people who have multiple romantic relationships at the same time.
