Why Sterlings Claim Under the Illinois Parentage Act Also Failed But was there another way Sterling might claim parental rights?
He hoped sp – and tried to proceed under the Illinois Parentage Act (IPA), and the agreement he and Jennifer had entered into, in part in an attempt to comply with the IPA. The IPA – which is modeled on a uniform act governing the establishment of parent-child relationships – provides rules governing legal parenthood in cases of artificial insemination. It makes agreements between married persons contemplating artificial insemination with sperm from a donor – agreements, that is, like the one Jennifer and Sterling entered into – legally effective. The problem, though, the Court held, was that Jennifer and Sterling were never legally married, and so the IPA could not apply to them in the usual way. The fact that the agreement referred to Sterling as “the husband,” the court held, did not mean he actually was one. (This ruling, then, to some extent paralleled the court’s ruling that just because the new birth certificate called Sterling “male,” that did not mean he actually was male.) St
