Donating sperm to a friend...

Factual Questions
1

Suppose a woman wants a child without the entanglements of a marriage. She can’t afford artificial insemination. So she finds a male who doesn’t want to be a parent, yet is willing to have sex with her til she gets pregnant.

Can the two of them create a legal, binding contract that will protect the male from future claims for child support payments or other parental obligations? (Let’s put aside the probability that having a lawyer draft such a contract might cost more than artificial insemination). A donor to a sperm bank has such protections, I believe. Does the removal of anonymity remove such protections?

For instance, what if the mother dies, or is a negligent parent who loses custody of the child. Can the state go after the known sperm donor for costs related to maintaining the child?

2

I’m pretty sure they can. IANAL, but IIRC the courts have consistantly ruled that the child’s welfare overrides any claim to paternal immunity.

3

Why would a woman want a child “without the entanglements of a marriage” in the first place. IMHO, a marriage is pretty easy; raising a child to be positive contribitor to society while remaining a single parent is a royal pain in the tush. I’m sure if you asked single moms and dads (after said child has grown up), they’d tell you that although their child means the world to them, it would have been better/easier/economically sounder if…
If you ask the kid about it, s/he’ll turn slightly away, sigh, and say, “I don’t know, it’s always been mom/dad and me.” Indicating that the subject is too painful, yet not actually avoiding the question. Ask them as adults and they’ll usually tell you about resentments and all the things they lacked. Also statistcally, kids from intentional single-parent households tend to have more problems socially/behaviorally. As a single parent (assuming she’s of a certain means) she needs to be out at a job fro 8-10 hours a day, raising money to pay for the home, food, clothes, toys, etc. so who is watching the kid and teaching them right from wrong? The day care center that has one teacher/babysitter for every 20 babies?

Of course, I say “marriage is easy” because I’m pretty much selfless in my spousal relationship (that’s what a partnership is about). A woman that seeks to get pregnant without wanting the acknowledgement of the father seems (to me) to be pretty selfish. Also any REAL man wouldn’t wish to enter such a contract. Sure, you say “I could do it” now but in 20 years from now you’ll have serious problems with guilt if you’re not in the child’s life. Possibly even less time…like right after the baby is born – and believe me, you’ll KNOW when the child is born even if you don’t WANT TO KNOW. Someone will make SURE of that. Trust me on this.

The issue is not about money nor support, it’s about character and responsibility. Creating a baby is not like buying a computer, which is easily replaced. It’s not even like buying a dog, which only has a lifespan of ca 15 years. It’s a lifetime commitment. Plenty of men who had such parental rights taken away because of the pro-female (pre 1970’s) “give the baby to the mother because she’s better equiped to handle the nurturing” mentality and court rulings will tell you the hardest thing was having their child taken away. Fortunately, men are allowed to fight such rights now and BE the primary caretaker after a divorce.

Finally, what gives people the right to enter into a “contract” over another human life as if they were passing papers on a house or an automobile? If I had a child and something happened to me, I’d want her/him to grow up in an environment that I felt safe with, not become a ward of the state and end up lord knows where.

I don’t know, I guess I’m just too neurotic that I’d screw up somebody’s life by not giving them the best opportunities. I suppose that’s why my husband and I won’t ever have kids. That, and we would much rather have the freedom to travel than to allow the responsibilities that come with a kid to hold us down.

To answer the second part of the question, I don’t think sperm banks have that anonymity you speak of. I’m pretty sure they keep accurate records of deposits and withdrawals (so to speak) because of possible genetic medical/health risks and child welfare laws & services/etc. to protect THEMSELVES in today’s litigious society. Also, I believe the state will force the male to take over (financial or other) resposibility of the child if it is known who he is.

Sorry this message is so long…

-kitty

4

–err, sorry, I meant “As a single parent (assuming she’s NOT of certain means)…”

Time for me to go to bed :wink:

5

Having sex with her until she gets pregnant wouldn’t hold up in court, IMO. You just fathered a child, dude.

Donating sperm via the turkey baster method might be defensible in court. I wouldn’t count on it though. You’re the genetic father.

I’ve been approached by women friends wanting a child without the “entanglements” of marriage. After some serious discussion it usually turns out their biological clock was ticking and they temporarily thought it might be great to have a kid. That feeling usually passes.

As a man, if I were to donate sperm to father a child, I’d only do it assuming that if the child ended up in an environment that wasn’t healthy & happy, it would be my responsibility & right to step in and be “dad.” I also would never do it without the understandiing that I’m going to be (at least) a significant male presence in the kid’s life. Marriage or not, legal parent or not.

Oh hell. Even if I did donate to an anonymous sperm bank, it would probably bug me the rest of my life wondering how & where my kid was.

6

I don’t think any contract can protect the father from a future claim. After all, any contract can be challenged. Just ask Donald Trump. You have to figure he had the best pre-nup in the world written up, and he still lost when Ivana challenged it.

If a man willingly participates in the creation of a life, I believe the courts will make him responsible.

7

Kitty, I have no idea why women would want children with or without marriage, as I’ve never had a desire for children (and I’ve had the surgery to prevent such an occurence), but some of them do.

Are you seriously saying no “real” man would want to have sex with a woman with the chance of parental consequences removed? I respectfully disagree. Another interpretation of your comments might be that no “real” man would donate sperm (contribute to a pregnancy) without insisting on sharing parental responsibility. Again, I think you are wrong. That’s one reason sperm banks exist.

As far as anonymity goes, I’m sure sperm banks keep records. I don’t what information might be provided to women who use these banks. But I’m reasonably sure male donors have immunity from legal issues of paternity as a condition of their donation. I will look for some evidence to support this.

Perhaps I should have used levdragon’s example of “turkey baster”, i.e. artificial insemination, to narrow the focus of my inquiry. But I wanted to focus on whether anonymity is a required element of immunity from from parental obligations. If I am correct that a sperm bank donor has legal immunity, and you are correct that sperm bank records could quickly determine who the real father is, then at least the state (if not the mother) could pierce the veil of anonymity pretty quickly. Yet it does not because of public policy, or perhaps contractual, issues that protect the male.

The question of sex or artificial insemination is, in my mind, a matter of delivery method, and shouldn’t change the legal situation. If it does, then the state is intervening with a moral judgement about a technical issue.

8

Info from the first site I visited, the Sperm Bank of California.

From the Scandinavian Cryobank:

A quote from the “Donor Agreement” with the Sperm Bank of New York

Note: in both of the above sperm banks, there are provisions available to allow the recipient to receive personal information about the donor, yet the donor still has no parental rights/obligations.

9

Oh yes, I can across this unusual site where you can buy the sperm of this particular guy.. Here is the contract you must sign to do so. Here is an except of relevant parental responsibility language:

Very interestng that, if this is correct, the implication is that actually haveing sex as a method of sperm delivery does indeed incur additional responsibilities on the donor.

10

The side question of whether this is desirable is, of course, a matter for Great Debates.

11

People can sign all the hold harmless paperwork they want, but if a disadvantaged or homeless kid of a single mother impregnated by a sperm donor has discovered (through whatever means) that Mr. Gotrocks is his bio-daddy, and has not other finanical resources at his disposal, I am not going to be betting the farm that a sympathetic Judge will not find some way make bio-dad cough up some cash regardless of whatever paeprwork mommy signed when she wanted a kid without a father.

12

Only if that sympathetic judge was willing to basically “bankrupt” all the sperm banks in the country. No one would ever donate again.

I can see the reason for a non-sexual transmission system required for parental exemption. How many guys would say afterwards “Hey I was only donating sperm,we had an oral agreement” :wink: , best to be all business.

13

Astro, I doubt it, as far as conventional sperm donations through sperm banks are concerned. They’ve been around for a long time, and apparently in some states like California (and probably others) the donors are protected by enacted legislation.

I was trying to find out whether two people could come to an indivual agreement similar to what is already written into law to protect sperm bank donors. And from what I’ve seen so far, the answer seems to be no. There apparently needs to be some kind of intervening third-party authority.

The California site offers what looks to be a solution for the hypothetical two people in my OP, called “Directed Donor Services”:

There is very little information on it, but I infer from it that the donor can use this service to shield himself from parental responsibility.

14

Some women who’ve had abusive relationships with men want children “without the entanglements of a marriage.” Some non-heterosexual women want children “without the entanglements of a marriage.” You may want to check gay parenting sites for information on how lesbians manage the sperm-related legalities.

15

Sorry no cite, but I distinctly remember a U.S. case about 15 years ago where the court ruled that there was no legal way for the father to avoid responsibility for the child where the father openly “donated sperm” to a women he knew who was trying to get pregnant. It this case I believe they had signed a legal agreement that he was not financially responsible, but the judge ruled that the mother could not sign away the child’s legal right for financial support from the father. (Note that this was different from an anonymous donor.)

16

“I was trying to find out whether two people could come to an indivual agreement”

Well, two of my friends did it in California. Both were gay women who wanted a baby so they used a turkey baster. Don’t laugh, they showed me a photo. They didn’t need a lawyer either but then the donors were very nice guys.

17

Here’s a brief article on a Swedish man who had donated sperm to a lesbian couple in order to allow them to have a child together who was sued for child support 10 years later when the couple broke up.

That seemed to me to be a horrible betrayal of a true friend, and a huge disincentive for anyone to “just be a nice guy” and donate sperm. Since this was a Swedish court rather than US, I don’t know how large a precedent it would be in the US.

18

I have a friend who had a baby from a poorly-thought-out relationship. She went to court and had his parental rights revoked. The father is now officially and legally unrelated to his daughter. Years later, the kid was adopted by my friend’s new husband. The kid is my friend and my friend’s husband’s kid legally. Even if they both died, the kid would not have any relationship to her biological father.
I believe she got rights revoked without needing his consent due to his never paying child support of any kind and total lack of interest. If the father went in to court willingly, I don’t see why there should be anny big deal about it. You may even be able to do it prenatally.

19

I cannot cite the case law for this, but I’m pretty sure that Child Support rights vest with the child (they belong to the child), so there can be no agreement ahead of time for two people to agree to waive rights vested in a third party. I have no idea how sperm banks get around this, though I suspect there is an exemption in the various laws of the states. I don’t have my Cal. Family Code handy, and this isn’t my field of law, but it looks like yojimboguy’s cite provides an exemption for licensed sperm banks and physician-assisted insemination. More than likely, this, not whether the couple had sex, is the real determining factor.

HennaDancer -
I suspect these are different situations. Parental rights and parental responsibilities are not necessarily the same thing. I can imagine a situation where parental rights are terminated (or forfeited in a judicial hearing, either explicitly or by failure to appear and defend his parental rights after due diligence at notice), but where the “father” still is responsible for child support. As stated above, the courts that I am aware of treat child support rights as vesting with the child, not the parent, so the parent cannot waive them. But I’m not sure, and have done no legal research on the subject. Do not take any of the above as legal advice.

Handy -
Your friends can agree to whatever they want, but I doubt it’s legally binding on the child, if he/she later decides to pursue child support.

20

This will vary according to the local law from place to place. In principal a parent’s obligations are owed to a child, not to a co-parent or an organisation like a sperm bank. So a contract with a co-parent or a sperm bank is not going to absolve a sperm donor of parental responsibility unless it is backed up by local law which (a) specifically allows this in sperm donation situations, or (b) specifically provides that, in a sperm donor situation, the donor is not a parent (in which case, obviously, no contractual exclusion of parental obligations is needed).

Bear in mind that the local law of the place where you happen to be when you donate the sperm may not be the only law to be considered. The law of the place where you happen to be when the child (or someone on its behalf) seeks to enforce parental obligations, or the law of the place where the child happens to be at that time, may also be relevant.