A lesbian couple in New York had a baby then separated. A judge says “equity and conscience” should be shared by moms.

The former partner of a mother of a child born through donor insemination may have an obligation to pay child support.

According to a complaint – filed in Rockland County, N.Y. – by H.M., the parties lived as a couple for more than five years, beginning in August 1989. H.M. was a stay-at-home mother to E.T.’s children, while her partner completed chiropractic school. The plan was for H.M. to then go to school, and for the couple to have children.

E.T. inseminated vials of sperm into H.M, resulting in the conception of their son. E.T. cut the umbilical cord at the child’s birth, then “nurtured and cared for the child as a parent,” according to the judge in the case.

E.T. ended the relationship in 1995, giving her ex-partner $1,500. H.M. had no income or home – and moved with their son into her parents’ home in Montreal.

Now H.M. is seeking 13 years of retroactive financial support.

In her petition for support, H.M. claimed that E.T. had “failed to honor her commitment to support her while she acquired her social work degree, and has refused to accept financial responsibility for the child.”

The judge noted that courts have bound opposite-sex partners to support obligations, including a recent case in which a man who agreed to provide support was held to that pledge even after he found out he was not the biological father as he had assumed.

He ordered that a hearing be scheduled to determine the facts necessary to decide whether such an obligation should be imposed on E.T.