“Most American Children Suffer Too Much Mother And Too Little Presumed Father,” Gloria Steinem.

By statute, a person is presumed to be the natural father of a child if he shows by a preponderance of the evidence that he received the child into his home and openly held the child out as his own. [Fam.Code § 7612 (a).] Here, the mother conceived the child through artificial insemination by an anonymous donor. R.M. prepared for the child’s birth by purchasing maternity clothes for the mother as well as nursery supplies and furniture, a car seat, playpen, high chair, swing set, sand box, club house, books clothes, diapers, toys, videos and other supplies. He designated the child as his primary beneficiary on a life insurance policy. Although they lived in California, for the first two years of the child’s life, the mother and the child regularly stayed in R.M.’s home in another state, and after two years, the mother bore another child, the biological child of R.M. Family portraits were taken of the four of them. After the mother and R.M. ended their relationship, the mother refused to permit R.M. to visit the child and R.M. filed a petition to establish his parental relationship with the child. The trial court ruled R.M. was the child’s presumed father and the mother appealed, arguing she chose to be a single parent. In affirming the trial court’s ruling, the appellate court held: “We hold that application of the presumed parent statutory scheme in this case did not constitute an unconstitutional interference with Mother’s fundamental right to parent her child.” (R.M. v. T.A. (Cal. App. Fourth Dist., Div. 1; January 27, 2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 760, [182 Cal.Rptr.3d 836].)