MIAMI (AP) - Three people - a gay man and two lesbians - are now the legal parents of a 23-month-old girl in South Florida.
The Miami Herald reports that Maria Italiano and Cher Filippazzo, who married in Connecticut, approached Massimiliano Gerina as a sperm donor several years ago following unsuccessful attempts to become pregnant through a professional clinic. Gerina gave the women his sperm, and Italiano conceived.
The couple had planned for Filippazzo to adopt the baby. Sperm donors have no legal rights under Florida law, but Gerina argued that the women claimed they wanted a father for the baby, not just a sperm donor.
Nearly two years of legal battling ended last month when Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Antonio Marin approved a settlement and private adoption that listed all three parents on the child's birth certificate.
