Single moms don't always need our pity

by Gerald Chipeur, Lauren Lackie and Stephanie Chipeur 

This commentary was first published in the National Post on Thursday, May 31, 2007.

In a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy, Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), fed up with waiting around for the "perfect" man to father her child, unsuccessfully attempted to have a child using an anonymous sperm donor. The episode reflected the reality that an increasing number of single women, fearing the tick of their biological clocks, are seeking to have a child without a man in their life.

It is unlikely that Dr. Montgomery will attract the same level of criticism today that Murphy Brown famously endured from vice-president Dan Quayle almost two decades ago. No longer is it universally accepted that a woman must forgo parenthood simply because she has been unlucky in love.

But what if she is not so unlucky? Are being a single mother and having romantic relationships mutually exclusive? Recently, the Alberta Court of Appeal suggested that, legally, this might be the case.

In the case of Doe vs. Alberta, the plaintiff, Jane Doe, had already found her ideal man, with whom she lived happily. She simply did not want him to be the father of her child, and neither did he. So she became pregnant through artificial insemination by an anonymous donor. In order to legally protect her decision to maintain her single parent status, she asked the court to enforce an agreement between her and her live-in partner, John Doe.

The phenomenon of "single mothers by choice" is now contributing to a growing segment of the 1.3 million single parent families in Canada. Anne-Marie Ambert, a leading Canadian family sociologist, argues in a report on one-parent families that "these women are generally financially secure, have a support group and their children are at a relatively lower risk of developing problems."

The question before the courts in Doe was how the law should respond to this alternative family structure. Could a professional woman legally be a single mother while engaging in a domestic romantic relationship with a man?

The Alberta Courts flatly rejected Jane Doe's attempt to create or preserve her single- parent family. The Court of Appeal held that John Doe was a parent by law, simply because he had been living with Jane Doe and her child since the child's birth. In the opinion of the Court of Appeal, forcing a

man to become the legal parent to a child against his and the mother's wishes is in the best interest of the child.

The courts held that Alberta's Family Law Act established an extremely low threshold for what it takes to be considered a parent under the law. Just living with the child's mother seemed to be enough for the court to justify their decision. By this reasoning, a single mother theoretically might lose her exclusive parenting rights to her roommate, or even a live-in nanny. This is probably not what the legislators had in mind when they passed the Family Law Act.

The stereotype of single mothers as emotionally and economically dependent on the men they come to live with certainly informs much of family law and, at times, for good reason. These mothers and their children may actually need the economic support, and the men may not want to provide it. So, the law steps in to protect the economically vulnerable.

But, these stereotypes simply do not apply to the Jane Does of Canada. Rather, bringing these assumptions of economic vulnerability to the courtroom deprives these women of the liberty to decide what or who is best for their child.

While claiming to protect the well-being of the child, the court failed to consider that imposing such extreme options on a single mother may also deprive a child of the male role model the courts and legislatures value so highly. Knowing that simply moving in with a woman and her child will automatically create the legal obligations of fatherhood could, for many men, be an absolute barrier to forming relationships with a single mother.

Currently, Jane Doe is seeking leave to appeal the Alberta court's decision to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has not yet addressed the right of a single parent to maintain and protect their single-parent family. By hearing this case, the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to take an important stand on the liberty of single mothers. The Supreme Court will have the opportunity to acknowledge and declare that not all single mothers need or want society's pity.