## Facts

- Two unmarried women in a long-term, committed relationship jointly petitioned to adopt a child who was the biological daughter of one petitioner.
- The child was conceived by artificial insemination using sperm from a known donor who consented to the adoption and surrendered any parental rights.
- Since birth, the child lived with both petitioners, who shared financial support and day-to-day parenting responsibilities.
- The trial judge found both petitioners functioned as the child’s custodial and psychological parents and that adoption by both served the child’s best interests.
- The Probate and Family Court entered a decree allowing the joint adoption but reported the case to obtain appellate confirmation of statutory authority and jurisdiction.

## Issues

1. Whether Massachusetts adoption law authorizes a joint adoption petition by two unmarried cohabitants when one petitioner is the child’s biological parent.
2. Whether allowing the non-biological partner to adopt requires termination of the biological mother’s parent-child relationship.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the decree allowing the adoption.
- The court held that the Probate and Family Court had jurisdiction under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 210, § 1 to grant a joint adoption by two unmarried petitioners in these circumstances.
- The court held the statute does not require termination of the biological mother’s parental rights as a condition of adoption by the mother’s unmarried partner.
- The result left both petitioners as the child’s legal parents.

## Legal Principles

- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 210, § 1 permits adoption petitions by “two persons” and does not, by its terms, limit joint adoption to married couples.
- Adoption statutes should be construed to serve the child’s best interests; statutory interpretation should not compel results that undermine the child’s welfare where the statutory text does not require them.
- In a second-parent adoption setting, an adoption decree may be entered to add a legal parent without extinguishing the existing legal parent-child relationship when consistent with the statutory scheme and the child’s best interests.
- Legislative silence on unmarried or same-sex petitioners is not treated as an implicit prohibition absent express statutory restriction.

## Conclusion

The court construed the Massachusetts adoption statute to allow a joint, second-parent adoption by unmarried partners and to preserve the biological mother’s parental status, because the statute did not bar such petitions and the child’s best interests favored recognition of both established parent-child relationships.


Adoption of Tammy, 416 Mass. 205, 619 N.E.2d 315 (1993)