DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa attorney general’s office has continued to refuse an accurate death certificate to Jenny and Jessica Buntemeyer, a married Iowa couple seeking an accurate death certificate for their stillborn baby, Brayden. Lambda Legal and One Iowa, a gay rights advocacy group, have delivered more than 8,000 petitions to the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) from people outraged at this injustice.
After the loss of their son, the Buntemeyers filled out the spaces on the death certificate form for both parents, and indicated that they were married. The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) sent the couple a death certificate for Brayden with Jenny’s name erased and Lambda Legal filed suit on their behalf in February.
“The loss of a child is an unbelievable tragedy, and their grief is compounded by the Iowa Department of Public Health,” said Molly Tafoya, spokeswoman for One Iowa.
“An Iowa court has already rejected the state’s arguments. Vital records such as birth and death certificates document legal parentage and not biology,” said Camilla Taylor, national marriage project director for Lambda Legal. “Iowa is the only state that has refused to do the right thing. In all the other states that have significant relationship recognition laws for same-sex couples, presumed parentage for their children is part of the package.”
In another Lambda Legal case against the IDPH, regarding a birth certificate for a child born to a married same-sex couple, a court ruled that the spousal presumption of parentage applies to children of same-sex spouses just as it does to children of different-sex spouses, and compelled the state to issue an accurate two-parent vital record immediately to this family.
I’m insulted. As the mother of a stillborn son, I know it took male and female to create him. Why is such a TINY sampling of this country being allowed to hijack it? Gay high school in Arizona, Trans Prisons in a CA dishing out hormones,., where does it end? I couldn’t get a Death Certificate AT ALL for my son because I was only at 24 weeks, but TWO WOMEN are fussing about it when TWO WOMEN didn’t create the baby. I pray that God still blesses this country with the straight to hell direction it’s headed into. Rest in peace my baby and that sweet baby as well. Protected and loved with Jesus.