The married lesbian couples who successfully challenged Indiana’s prohibition on listing both women as parents on their children’s birth certificates have filed their brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, telling the justices not to bother with this long-running dispute.

“This case does not present an important question of federal law for the Court to resolve, but instead merely asks this Court do review the (7th Circuit Court of Appeals’) construction of Indiana Law,” the women said in their response brief. “… Even if the state law question is one that can arise in multiple states, the Court’s construction of Indiana’s law would necessarily be specific to that jurisdiction, rather than having broader effect.”

The case, Box v. Henderson, was filed in February 2015 and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana granted summary judgment for the same-sex married women couples in June 2016. After the district court reaffirmed its decision in December of that year, Indiana appealed to the 7th Circuit.

About a month after the Chicago appellate court heard oral arguments in Henderson in May 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued Pavan v. Smith, 137 S. Ct. 2075 (2017). In that case, the court reviewed a birth certificate regime in Arkansas that was similar to Indiana’s. The justices found states cannot grant certain benefits to a birth mother’s opposite-sex spouse when their child is conceived through artificial insemination but then deny those same benefits to a birth mother’s same-sex spouse. The 7th Circuit finally affirmed the district court’s ruling in Henderson in January 2020.

Filing a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, Indiana argued its birth certificate policy is different from the one overturned in Pavan because it is based on biology rather than marriage.

However, in their response brief, the eight women couple dissected Indiana’s regime for completing a newborn’s birth certificate to support their argument that Pavan applies.

The women state that the birth worksheet simply asks the mother if she is married to the child’s “father” and, if so, to identify him. It does not use the term “biological” or otherwise indicate that the “father” must have a genetic tie to the child.

“While the state asserts that it ‘treats the term “father” to mean “biological father,”’ that meaning is neither evident from the form nor supported by Indiana law, and it is contradicted by the form itself,” the women respondents claimed. “Nowhere does the Birth Worksheet define the term ‘father,’ nor does it suggest that she should not list her husband if the couple has, by agreement, conceived with the assistance of donor insemination.” Read more via Indiana Lawyer