## Facts

- Two women in a long-term, committed relationship jointly planned to raise children together.
- The biological mother conceived two sons through anonymous donor insemination and gave birth in 1988 and 1992.
- The partner assisted at both births and shared parenting responsibilities from each child’s birth.
- The couple filed uncontested petitions for the partner to adopt both children while preserving the biological mother’s parental rights.
- A state home study recommended approval as serving the children’s best interests.
- Expert testimony stated the children needed assurance of a continuing relationship with the partner for their psychological and emotional well-being.
- The probate court denied the petitions, concluding Vermont’s adoption statutes did not allow the adoption without terminating the biological mother’s parental rights.

## Issues

1. Whether Vermont adoption law requires termination of a biological mother’s parental rights when her children are adopted by her unmarried partner.
2. Whether Vermont’s adoption statutes permit an adoption that adds a second legal parent to an existing family unit when the adoption serves the children’s best interests.

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court reversed the probate court.
- The court held that Vermont law does not require termination of the biological mother’s parental rights in this context.
- The court remanded with instructions to grant the adoption petitions, subject to ordinary procedural requirements.

## Legal Principles

- Adoption statutes should be construed to advance child welfare and the best interests of the child, not to dismantle an intact, functioning parent-child relationship.
- Statutory provisions that generally sever natural parents’ rights upon adoption are not applied mechanically where termination would be unreasonable and unnecessary to achieve the adoption’s purpose.
- Vermont law allows an unmarried person to adopt; marital status alone does not bar an adoption that otherwise satisfies statutory requirements.
- Courts must reach and apply the best-interests analysis when the statute, properly construed, permits the requested adoption.

## Conclusion

Vermont permitted a “second-parent” adoption in which a parent’s unmarried partner could adopt the children without extinguishing the biological mother’s rights, because the family already functioned as a unit and the uncontested evidence showed the adoption served the children’s best interests.


Adoptions of B.L.V.B. & E.L.V.B., 628 A.2d 1271 (Vt. 1993)