For same-sex couples, in particular the partners of biological parents, the law offers no protection.

Last February the Utah Supreme Court ruled in a case of a same-sex couple who had separated and the non-biological partner was fighting for visitation rights. The high court ruled in Jones vs. Barlow that a domestic partner did not have any right under Utah law to claim visitation rights.

In the case, a lesbian couple had agreed to have a child and raise it together. However, when the girl was 2 years old the couple separated, and the biological mother became a born-again evangelical Christian. The ex-partner petitioned a Utah judge for visitation. The judge granted the woman visitation and ordered her to pay child support under a common-law statute known as "in loco parentis," Latin for "in the place of a parent."

The judge ruled that because the two women had planned to raise the child together from birth and that the ex-partner was a parental figure, it was in the best interest of the child to have both women in her life.

The Utah Supreme Court struck down that ruling, finding that Utah law did not afford the ex-partner that right. The Legislature, according to the ruling, would have to craft a law to change that.

Just before the court ruled in Jones vs. Barlow, Gina Herrera of Draper was struggling with a similar situation. She and her domestic partner of 10 years had also decided to have a baby through artificial insemination. Late last year, Herrera and her partner, Hollii Whiting, decided to call off their relationship, and Whiting took her daughter.

The two women were working out a visitation agreement when the Utah Supreme Court ruled. The next day, Herrera said she was told by Whiting that the agreement would be yanked.

"We had seen each other the day of the ruling," Herrera said of the little girl. "I had a little bit of hope."

It has been almost six months since she has seen the girl Herrera considers her daughter.

"It angers me and it disgusts me. We shouldn't be treated differently than divorced heterosexual couples," Herrera said. "People need to realize that biology doesn't make a parent and that the child's best interest needs to be the priority."

Although the legal outlook for her fight looks bleak, Herrera said "giving up is not an option."

In a statement sent to the Deseret Morning News, Whiting's attorney, Bryant McConkie, said his client made the decision to cut off visitation with Herrera to keep her daughter from being placed in a confusing environment.