Getting Hit at the Sperm Pump

Are five parents better than two? Maybe, if you can hit up all of them for child support:

A man who donated sperm for a lesbian couple's two children must pay support, the state Superior Court ordered in a ruling that legal experts are calling a precedent.

In reaching the decision, the three-judge panel said that since Carl L. Frampton Jr., who died while the case was pending, had involved himself as a stepparent, he assumed some of the parenting duties.

Lori Andrews, a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor with expertise in reproductive technology, said as many as five people could claim some parental status toward a single child if its conception involved a surrogate mother, an egg donor and a sperm donor.

Sadly for some, the ruling does not spell doom for the sperm and ova markets. The unfortunate sperm source demonstrated "parental involvement far beyond merely biological" by offering the kid cash, toys, and attention, a factor that seems to have been crucial to the decision. Two-thirds of states (but not Pennsylvania) already have laws protecting donors from this sort of thing.

Still, the ruling creates an incentive for donors to stay far, far away from their biological children. 

Last year, I argued against the end of anonymity for sperm donors. 

Comments

Warren | May 11, 2007, 2:57pm | #

And here is our libertarian hottie blogging about sperm. Can we please resurrect the "She was asking for it" defense?

damaged justice | May 11, 2007, 3:13pm | #

I pre-emptively apologize for any spillover from my semen comment in the other thread.

Jonathan Hohensee | May 11, 2007, 3:19pm | #

Sperm pumps? oral sex? Limbs falling off tacos? In one fell afternoon, Reason has devolved into nothing but a SMUT peddler.

Mad Max | May 11, 2007, 3:24pm | #

Some of the problems of hiring sperm or egg donors, as discussed on a conservative blog:

"Imagine: You're a 40-something married woman who has repeatedly tried and failed to conceive. You peruse donor catalogues for a young woman whose features, interests, and intellectual ability roughly match your own, trying to preserve the illusion, in every way possible, that this is your baby. You find a match—Donor Number 7, say—you've got your eggs. Now, do you want to meet the hyper-fertile, attractive 21-year-old undergrad who is the genetic mother of your child-to-be? Do you want your husband to?"

Wait, that wasn't a conservative blog, that was from the Kerry Howley article re anonymous donation.

Perhaps the 40-something married woman could look for a child or children to adopt. I know, it's a really radical solution, what with the shortage of abandoned and abused children in need of placement (Cambodian orphanages and U.S. social agencies always complain they don't have enough children and have to turn away adoptive parents all the time), and you can't guarantee that the child's mother has traits to "match your own." Best to suppress that discomfort and have your husband impregnate some other woman.

smartass sob | May 11, 2007, 3:26pm | #

Getting Hit at the Sperm Pump

I've been hit IN the sperm pump a few times and had the nozzle bitten once - hurt like hell!

B.P. | May 11, 2007, 3:26pm | #

Geez, I'd better be careful with the stuff.

Lamar | May 11, 2007, 3:28pm | #

I dunno, a biological father who was also a part of the kids life...seems kind of hard to say that he should be treated differently than other fathers. Yes, sperm donors should be kept anonymous, but here it appears that the man wanted to be in the kids life (do we know this?).

independent worm | May 11, 2007, 3:48pm | #

Even if the donor was involved in the child's life, how does that make him financially responsible, given that there had to have been contractual assurances by the couple that he wouldn't *have to* be liable?

Why can't the guy do a good deed, without being punished?

Seems to me that if everyone is clear up front about who owes what to whom, then the donor should be in the clear -- whether its a male sperm donor or a female egg donor. Once such an understanding is in place, it should be no more significant -- legally -- that the donor contribute to the well-being of the child than if the donor were the child's aunt, grandfather, second cousin, neighbor, or favorite teacher, doing all the gift giving and what not.

Why the direct biological connection, combined with some showing of interaction with the child, constitutes a legally binding financial obligation -- which trumps the prior understanding of the parties -- is unclear.

We are on the road to making aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and well-wishers financially responsible for the well-being of children to whom they have ever given a present. The only difference between them and a donor is that it's not their eggs or semen that made the child. But when you're talking about an already-born human being, years removed from the donation, couldn't you say that the significance of that biological connection has become less significant the farther removed in time from it we get? And if so, then what *limits* the application of a ruling like this *only* to donors?

Is there some rational basis for saying that a non-donor relative who is vastly more financially and emotionally involved with a child -- who might even temporarily (but unofficially) assume a parental role -- could be immune from further obligation *just because* it's not their DNA walking around?

The First Church of Appliantology | May 11, 2007, 4:06pm | #

he got everytihng but the sex, eh?

whatta rip...

along the same lines, this guy I know caught his wife fucking one of his buddies. They had a big blowout fight, cops and everything but they (husband and wife) ultimately ironed things out. They even had a daughter 18 months later.

fast forward 8 years. Again dude catches his wife fucking the same guy. This time he gives her the heave ho. She launches into a petulant frenzy and taunts him with the info that the daughter isn't even his, she's the other guy's.

Mom ends up on welfare, and the county comes knocking for child support. He brings a (very expensive) blood-test into court showing the kid's not even his. Too late, the court tells him, the window for challenging paternity had expired. The poor schmuck ends up getting 33% of his meager wages garnished to send off to his ex, who's living with the kid's real dad.

when asked about it (by the suffering sucker) alls I could say was, "the law's a funny thing"

Mr. F. Le Mur | May 11, 2007, 4:08pm | #

Seems to me that if everyone is clear up front about who owes what to whom, then the donor should be in the clear -- whether its a male sperm donor or a female egg donor.

Generally, the only time sperm donors are "off the hook" is when they donate through a doctor's office, or other 3rd party, which keeps them anonymous (and which keeps the recipient anonymous). Contracts of non-responsibility are meaningless ("illegal conract"?) because the State supposedly represents The Children. So says the feminists, anyway.

Two-thirds of states (but not Pennsylvania) already have laws protecting donors from this sort of thing.

If they're not anonymous and/or don't work through a 3rd party? This only thing unusual about this case is the lesbian couple; the treatment of the non-anonymous sperm donor is typical.

David | May 11, 2007, 4:08pm | #

I dunno, a biological father who was also a part of the kids life...seems kind of hard to say that he should be treated differently than other fathers. Yes, sperm donors should be kept anonymous, but here it appears that the man wanted to be in the kids life (do we know this?).

I suppose it depends on the nature of their arrangement. It makes some sense for him to have contact with the child if he was donating sperm for a lesbian couple that he was already close to (why else would he do it?). In that sense, he would be more like an uncle which would make the attention & gifts less "parental" in nature.

Is he supposed to pay child support to the couple? Or have they divorced and the child support being paid to one woman?

NoStar | May 11, 2007, 4:18pm | #

Why can't the guy do a good deed, without being punished?

Why, you ask? OK, I'll tell you why. Luce's Law. Named for Claire Boothe Luce.
To wit: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

Bob Smith | May 11, 2007, 4:34pm | #

Contracts of non-responsibility are meaningless ("illegal conract"?) because the State supposedly represents The Children. So says the feminists, anyway.

Someday an egg donor will be hit up for child support, and those same feminists will go apeshit defending "contracts of non-responsibility".

Brian | May 11, 2007, 5:12pm | #

Kerry's last 6 Hit and Run posts.....

*Another Blow for Abstinence
*Show Us Your Tits Union Card!
*All Your Breasts Are Belong to Us (Unless We *Tell You Otherwise
*Cowboys and Embryos
*The Coming War on Spinners

I'm just saying.

In regards to this article...Ohio can't even get the regular dead-beat dads to pay up. But, uh, yeah, anonymity for sperm donors is a good thing.

Brian | May 11, 2007, 5:16pm | #

Sorry I forgot "Getting Hit at the Sperm Pump". Ha.

Guy Montag | May 11, 2007, 5:19pm | #

In reaching the decision, the three-judge panel said that since Carl L. Frampton Jr., who died while the case was pending, had involved himself as a stepparent, he assumed some of the parenting duties.

So, every person who helped take care of my son owes his mother money? Better not let this news get to TN!

Stevo Darkly | May 11, 2007, 6:34pm | #

Well, this settles it for me. I'm never going to donate any of mine. I'm keeping it all. Every last bit of it. Even if I have to rent space in a warehouse.

The Wine Commonsewer | May 11, 2007, 7:21pm | #

Yet another sterling example that illustrates TWC premise # 38. There is no justice in the American justice system, civil or criminal.

Lamar | May 11, 2007, 11:58pm | #

Aw, C'mon T-dubs, even a clock is right twice a day, unless it's broken in such a way that the clock motor runs backwards while one hand is broken and the hands don't meet at the correct time.

wayne | May 12, 2007, 3:41am | #

In this case, the father (were he not defunct) should sue for full legal custody of his child.

Being raised by Godless lesbians and taught to perform deviate acts from a tender age is reason enough to place the child with his normal, hetero dad, but we now know that Dad has the pink slip on the welp as well.

Lindsay Lohan | May 12, 2007, 8:01am | #

Perhaps a breach-of-contract suit could be filed by the man's heirs (the legitimate ones) against the women, vis-a-vis the man's legal immunities being swept aside.

But yes, sadly, the one commenter is right: if it's For The Children (copyright 2007) then no miscarriage of justice is too great to bear.

James Ard | May 12, 2007, 8:38am | #

Maybe Kerry is lucky her egg didn't take, after all. But I still believe it was a huge loss to humanity.

J Golden Rockwell | May 12, 2007, 3:08pm | #

Bob Smith wrote:

Someday an egg donor will be hit up for child support, and those same feminists will go apeshit defending "contracts of non-responsibility".

Only if the donor is a lesbian. "Feminists" don't seem to care much about heterosexual women, unless they can be used as a tool to slam heterosexual men.

That observation was once made by a friend of mine, who happened to be lesbian, and who was ashamed that so many of the prominent "feminists" were also lesbian. She referred to them as the "NOBs" -- "National Organization of Bulls" -- and said the real problem was that they were trying to prove their masculinity!