Source: WOUB / Statehouse News Bureau

The Ohio Supreme Court held that Ohio’s artificial‑insemination law does not extend parental rights to unmarried same‑sex partners who separated before same‑sex marriage was legalized, and that courts cannot retroactively determine whether the parties “would have been married.” The decision arose from a Cincinnati custody dispute involving Priya Shahani and Carmen Edmonds; Shahani had given birth to three children via artificial insemination during their 12‑year relationship, the couple were engaged but never married, and they separated in 2015. Edmonds sought legal parental status under the state’s artificial‑insemination statutes, and the First District Court of Appeals had agreed with her by overturning the Hamilton County Juvenile Court’s denial.

Counsel for Shahani told the Ohio Supreme Court that recognizing Edmonds’ claim would amount to retroactively creating a marriage to apply marriage‑based statutes, while Edmonds’ lawyer said his client planned to raise the children and wanted to be a mother. Justice Pat DeWine, writing for the majority, wrote that the “would have been married” inquiry would force trial courts to speculate about counterfactual realities. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the appeals court to resolve custody based on other issues and did not itself establish a final parental determination under the artificial‑insemination law.