I’d like to read the Dope’s take on this.
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/local/ci_5856132
Something similar to this may have been debated prior,but I can’t search and link.
Mods,apologies if this has already been done.
no good deed goes unpunished
The man in question is now dead, so it’s a moot point to him.
If this was a random donation, or a sperm donation from a friend or later had no meaningful relationship or contact with the child, I’d say this was a travesty and the system needed to be changed.
However, the sperm donor in question, was apparently a significant factor in the two children’s lives. He had bought them thousands of dollars in gifts before the child support claim was filed, he was called “papa” by the children.
So I’m not really sure it’s such a stretch, in that case. Technically he donated the sperm so two gay women he knew could have children, but in being in their lives as a father figure, well, he brought the situation on himself. Being a parent equals responsibilities.
If he had donated the sperm and never become a father figure, then I wouldn’t agree with the decision.
Your title is rather misleading. This guy “gave” sperm at home, without any sort of paperwork or medical intervention that I can see referenced. He remained active in the kid’s lives. They called him “Papa.” This wasn’t a guy who yanked one off in a clinic for the $25 to get him through 'till payday.
His relationship with the children was that of a father, albeit a non-custodial with visitation rights father. He’s their father, and he should pay support. Except for that being dead thing.
I actually applaud this decision and am quite excited by it. It could be a first step towards gaining legal status for poly-families. For years, people have used child support as a sticking point in making plural marriage legal - as if we can’t figure out how to divide by three.
This thread, referring to this report by Gfactor are relevant.
As the article in the OP makes clear, the issue here was less about biological parentage and more about emotional parentage. This guy wasn’t some anonymous donor; the kids knew who he was, called him papa, relied on him for emotional support (and toys!!), etc. It feels equitable to say to him: you fathered them and then stuck around to help raise them. You can’t walk away scot free, particularly when our primary public policy concern is and always has been making sure that kids have adequate support so that the state doesn’t have to take over their care.
I know we made the same point, but I thought about something else that has me wanting to backtrack a bit: open adoption. How “involved” does a biological parent have to be to be legally accountable? If I give up my child for adoption and I get four photos a year but never meet the kid, am I a parent? What if we exchange letters at Christmas and birthdays? What if I attend the family reunion once a year and I’m known as “Auntie WhyNot” to the kid? What if I’m always known as “Birthmom WhyNot” and I hang out with the family a lot 'cause I become friends with the parents?
Somewhere along that line, I think, a person becomes an emotional parent. I’m just not sure where it is. This guy was clearly at the “emotional parent” end of the spectrum - I’m just not sure what precedent this sets for someone elsewhere on the line.
ETA: And of course, the other end of the spectrum - my kid’s biodad hasn’t seen him since he was 5 (he’s 14 now). They haven’t exchanged a word in nearly 10 years. He’s most certainly not “an emotional parent”. But he’s legally liable for child support nonetheless. (Doesn’t pay it, but he’s legally required to.) Since his spoken intent during pregnancy and at the birth was to be an emotional parent, I think that’s only just.
Not to diminish your questions in any way, but simply to throw out a specific aspect of the law in such cases: in an adoption, even an open adoption, the child is separated from the birth parent by the force of the law and the justice system. Parental (legal) rights and responsibilities are severed by the court so that the state no longer recognizes a relationship between the birth parent and the child. I am not familiar with new laws and contracts regarding open adoption, but unless there was some specific language placed in a contract or adoption judgment, there is simply no way for the child, adoptive parents, or courts to return to the birth parent with any claim for financial support.
Oh, right, I get that. And this triad did not, as far as I can tell from the article, formerly sever his parental rights, so bad on them. (Although I’m not sure if their state recognizes same-gender parental adoption - could the “other mom” have legally adopted them? If so, double-bad on them for not protecting everyone with legal paperwork.) I think the courts are completely right on legal and ethical grounds that this guy is the kids’ “dad”, on every level that counts, and he should be paying some of their support.
I’m just now scratching my head on the larger question of “emotional parent”. At first read, it seems logical and just that a person who’s emotionally invested AND shares direct paternal DNA with the kid ought to be a financially responsible parent, but it gets all grey-area real quick, doesn’t it? Of course the law recognizes parents according to DNA first and paperwork second, but this puts “friendly arrangements” at great risk, it seems.
Before I ran into pregnancy trouble, I’d have surrogated or donated eggs for my sister-in-law or infertile friends in a heartbeat. Before reading this, I’d have gladly done it without the expense of lawyers and legal fees, just as a friendly arrangement. This makes me realize what a foolhardy thing that is to do in these days.
WhyNot,no intent to mislead with the title.I gave a link to another paper than the one I read the item in.More emphasis was placed on the father’s reluctance to provide support,and the fact that he wasn’t legally entangled 'til the two women broke up.
Prior to reading the facts in Tomndebb's post,I was wondering whether people who adopted and then hit financial trouble could sue for support.
And why couldn't it happen to a guy who yanked one off?
Campion,thanks for the links, that's what I was remembering.From the quoted article.
I know that it takes a village to raise a child, I didn’t know it took one to create a child.
What bothers me most about this case is that the plaintiff asking for money is the non-custodian parent, looking to reduce her court-ordered financial obligation to her children. I wouldn’t respect anyone who willingly became a parent and then tried various legal tactics to force others to take responsibility.
With only the one article to go by, it’s impossible to know all the facts, but I wonder how much responsibility he truly had. The judge noted that the father “spent thousands of dollars on the children, including purchases of toys and clothing.” However, with the two children being 8 and 7, then that could be in the range of a couple of hundred dollars a year. That is within the amount which I spend on my nephew and niece. The next is that fact that the children called him “papa,” but that again could be misleading. With two parents already, and knowing that he was the biological father, this could be a word which could be agreed on by the various parties.
My wife is currently researching the role of surrogate mothers of a grant by the Japanese government for a report to their parliament, as background for a possible change in the role of laws. She had read this story in the Taiwanese press, and we agree that these aren’t easy matters.
The first half of your post contradicts the second; if the guy did all this for these kids, he was hardly “walking away scot free.” As for adequate support, see what TokyoPlayer said above:
That’s the real crux of the matter. The woman who sued for support obviously didn’t think he owed anything until SHE was found liable for support after the relationship dissolved.
This whole thing is one more example of how “reproductive rights” is a phrase with no meaning for men.
No. He voluntarily supported them; I don’t read the article to mean that he had some court-ordered obligation to support them. Consequently, the point I made is not internally contradictory: if one is a biological parent as well as, for lack of a better term, an emotional parent, one cannot walk away scot free. There are consequences for those actions, as I said and as public policy holds.
I don’t disagree that she’s an unethical bitch, for lack of a better term. As a parent of those kids, she has responsibility toward them. But that doesn’t change the major point: public policy holds that we’ll look for individuals to support their children so that the state doesn’t have to. I do think that the law in this area is going to change over the next few years as we find more use of reproductive technology.
This conclusion does not follow from your premise. I’ll also point out that this guy apparently took no steps to be a sperm donor as opposed to a parent. That’s like saying that if a guy dies without a will and all his stuff then goes to his much-hated parents through intestacy, he is somehow treated unfairly. He isn’t; he didn’t take the steps needed to keep his stuff away from those he hates – he didn’t draft a will. Similarly, this guy didn’t take the steps needed to limit his vulnerability to a claim for child support. So it goes.
You may not be able to “search and link” but why can’t you “cut and paste”. In other words, please don’t just post a cite and ask us what we think- cut and paste a few relevant paragraphs *and *a link/cite.
DrDeth-Thanks for the tip on forum decorum.