West Virginia

The West Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday that a lesbian couple should have custody of an 18-month old foster child, overturning a judge's order that the girl should be placed with a heterosexual couple who might adopt her.

The court barred enforcing and earlier ruling by Judge Paul Blake Jr. - which said that the girl should be taken away from Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess. The girl has remained in the couple's custody throughout the court proceedings.

The Supreme Court of the State of West Virginia is considering whether an infant placed with a lesbian couple after she was born to a drug addicted mother shall remain with the couple, according to West Virginia Metro News. The Department of Health and Human Services did approve the couple for foster care, but the trial court judge wanted the child to be removed from the home in order to provide her a more "traditional" home with a mother and father.

The state Supreme Court will decide whether a baby girl will stay with the lesbian couple in Fayette County that wants to adopt her.

A judge in Fayette County has already called for the child, who is just more than a year old, to be removed from the home in favor of a more 'traditional' home with a mother and a father.

On Tuesday, the Family Policy Council of West Virginia filed a friend of the court brief asking the Supreme Court to side with the lower court ruling.

A West Virginia couple has taken its case to the state Supreme Court, arguing that their daughter should not be taken from their home because they are gay.

The Charleston Daily Mail reported that Cheryl Hess and Kathryn Kutil appealed a decision, made by Judge Paul Burke of the lower Fayette Circuit court.

The American Surrogacy Center [TASC] provides a very positive analysis of legal surrogacy in West Virginia. TASC says:

"West Virginia is a surrogacy-friendly state. Some states have a great deal of law on the subject of surrogacy - either from state statutes or appellate court cases. Other states have no law, which leaves the question up in the air. West Virginia has only one sentence in its law which is incredibly significant."

The American Surrogacy Center says the District of Columbia is very unfriendly toward surrogacy.