This is kind of a big deal and perhaps a fatal wound to the sperm donation industry.
A man who provided sperm to a lesbian couple after responding to an online advert has been declared the legal father of the child born to one of the women and told he must pay child support by a Kansas judge on Wednesday.
William Marotta, of Topeka, Kansas, had argued that he had waived his parental rights and did not intend to be a father to the child, who is now four-years-old.
He said he signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities after responding to an advert placed by Jennifer Schreiner and her partner at the time, Angela Bauer, on Craigslist seeking a sperm donor.
But this claim was rejected by Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi, who said the parties did not involve a licensed physician in the artificial insemination process and thus Mr Marotta didn’t qualify as a sperm donor, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported.
No more scot-free fatherhood.
January 24, 2014 at 4:55 pm
One may not deny one's parental obligations. For once the courts acknowledged the truth that every child has a biological mother and father, but probably for the wrong reasons.
January 24, 2014 at 5:47 pm
But if she had decided to abort he would have had zero say.
January 24, 2014 at 8:19 pm
ProudHillbilly said…
But if she had decided to abort he would have had zero say. Roe v. Wade legally castrated all American men.
A child creates a father of a man and a mother of a woman because the child needs a mother and a father.
January 25, 2014 at 4:42 am
So wait — it's because there was no doctor involved? What kind of cockamamie legal point is that? Give your sperm to a doctor to use in a "procedure" and you're fine, save some bucks and do it yourself with a turkey baster (I am not making that up, I don't know what these ladies did but read up on surrogacy and related topics and you'll find that it's done) and it's somehow different? What a bizarre world…
January 26, 2014 at 2:35 am
Insofar as law purports to diverge from objective reason it is invalid.
January 25, 2014 at 4:43 am
And meanwhile in New York, a judge says that really good friends who don't live together can adopt children, who shuffle back and forth between houses just like children of divorced couples. Yup.
January 26, 2014 at 3:45 am
The basic problem is that the two women split up and the mother of the child applied for social services benefits. The government requires a 3rd party to be involved in order to sever parental rights; sperm donation is typically done through intermediaries so the donor doesn't meet the recipient. I think that's to prevent fraud; easy to sleep around, get someone pregnant and claim to be a sperm donor to avoid paying child support.