It's always a good idea to look for unintended consequences before writing laws. Unfortunately, it's a step that is sometimes passed over lightly.

Gov. Huntsman has an opportunity to save the Utah State Legislature from its own shortsightedness. He is considering whether to sign House Bill 148, which alters the rules of in loco parentis, a fancy Latin word referring to the legal doctrine that parents can delegate authority for their children to another party.

Parents do this, for example, when they leave their kids with a baby sitter or send them off to school. The sitter and the school are allowed to act legally on the parent's behalf while the kids are in their care.

Rep. Lavar Christensen, R-Draper, sponsored HB 148 to state that the in loco parentis doctrine does not grant any of the permanent legal rights of a parent, such as visitation, custody, legal guardianship or adoption. His bill was a response to a Utah case in which a woman was granted visitation rights to her lesbian lover's biological daughter. His bill also allows a biological parent to terminate any temporary caregiving relationships.

Christensen's bill was a bad idea from the start. One case at the district court level does not mean the end of Western civilization, much less a rewriting of a long-standing legal doctrine. In truth, the bill is just another shot at gays -- something that has become an identifying feature of the Utah Legislature.

But the most troubling aspect of Christensen's knee-jerk bill is its unintended consequences. If signed into law, it could affect the rights of stepparents to be involved in their stepchildren's lives following a divorce or death of a spouse.

This is a serious matter in a society where half of all marriages end in divorce. A child could be cut off from the only mother or father he or she knows because the stepparent has no biological link to the child.

Christensen's bill also sets up a worst-case scenario in which, upon a parent's death, an ex-spouse who was an absentee parent would have more legal right to his child than a good stepparent who enjoys a two-way bond with the child.

While biology allows someone to claim parenthood at one level, that is not enough. On her daily radio program, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is fond of referring to "sperm donors," and drawing lines between that and true fatherhood, for example. She is right. Genuine parenthood requires emotional commitment, sacrifice and work. A parent is the one who sits up all night with a sick child, who juggles schedules to make it to a school program and is there when the child needs parental support.

Under HB 148, it would not matter if a stepparent were the true caregiver. It wouldn't even matter if the biological parent were nowhere to be found during the child's formative years. As long as 23 chromosomes were contributed, this person would have the right to make decisions affecting the child unless it could be proved in court that he or she is legally unfit. That's a very high bar.

Rather than opening the door for heartache among Utah families, Huntsman should veto this ill-advised bill and tell lawmakers to think more carefully in the future.