## Facts

- Two married same-sex couples in Arkansas had children in 2015 through anonymous sperm donation; in each couple, one spouse gave birth.
- Arkansas law required that when a married woman gives birth, her “husband” be entered on the child’s birth certificate as the father, including when he was not the biological parent due to anonymous donor conception.
- Each couple completed hospital paperwork listing both spouses as parents, but the Arkansas Department of Health issued birth certificates listing only the birth mothers and excluding the non-birth spouses.
- The couples alleged the exclusion denied them marital parental recognition and impeded use of birth certificates in common legal and practical contexts (e.g., medical decisions and school enrollment).

## Issues

1. Whether a state that lists a married woman’s nonbiological husband on a child’s birth certificate must, under the Fourteenth Amendment as interpreted in *Obergefell v. Hodges*, provide the same recognition to a married woman’s wife when the child is conceived by anonymous sperm donation.

## Decision

- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, summarily reversed the Arkansas Supreme Court in a per curiam decision, and remanded.
- The Court held that Arkansas’s birth-certificate scheme violated the Constitution by denying married same-sex couples the same spousal-parent recognition afforded to married different-sex couples.
- Because Arkansas used birth certificates to recognize marital parentage beyond biology (including listing nonbiological husbands), it could not deny the same recognition to same-sex spouses.
- Justice Gorsuch dissented, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, objecting to summary reversal and disputing that *Obergefell* clearly controlled a birth-certificate regime framed as biology-based.

## Legal Principles

- Under *Obergefell*, states must provide same-sex couples civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples, including equal access to benefits and legal recognitions linked to marriage.
- When a state chooses to use birth certificates to confer or recognize nonbiological parental status based on marriage, equal protection and due process principles bar denying that recognition to married same-sex couples.
- A state may not characterize birth certificates as purely biological records to justify unequal treatment when its own statutory scheme already departs from biology for married different-sex couples.

## Conclusion

The Court required Arkansas to provide married same-sex spouses the same birth-certificate parental recognition it provides married different-sex spouses, reaffirming that *Obergefell* applies to marital incidents and benefits beyond the marriage license itself.


Pavan v. Smith, 582 U.S. 563 (2017)