The plaintiffs in the case described below were two married same-sex couples who conceived  children through anonymous sperm donation. Leigh and Jana Jacobs were married in Iowa in 2010, and Terrah and Marisa Pavan were married in New Hampshire in 2011. Leigh and Terrah each gave birth to a child in Arkansas in 2015. When it came time to secure birth certificates for the newborns, each couple filled out paperwork listing both spouses as parents Leigh and Jana in one case, Terrah and Marisa in the other. Both times, however, the Arkansas Department of Health issued certificates bearing only the birth mother’s name. The department’s decision rested on a provision of Arkansas law that specified which individuals will appear as parents on a child’s state-issued birth certificate. The statute stated that “[f]or the purposes of birth registration, the mother is deemed to be the woman who gives birth to the child.” The statute also instructed that “[i]f the mother was married at the time of either conception or birth, the name of [her] husband shall be entered on the certificate as the father of the child.” The requirement that a married woman’s husband appear on her child’s birth certificate applied, according to the state’s interpretation of the statute, if the couple conceived by means of artificial insemination with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. 

The Jacobses and Pavans brought this suit in Arkansas state court against the director of the Arkansas Department of Health in an effort to obtain a declaration that the state’s birth-certificate law violated the U.S. Constitution. The trial court so ruled, but the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s decision. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide the case. What constitutional provision or provisions do you see as relevant here? How did the Supreme Court rule?