Lesbian Couple Sue Sperm Donor for Child Support Payments and Win

Emilio Garcia LGBT, Rundown

William Marotta of Kansas, USA, will now have to pay a lesbian couple that purchased his sperm in order to conceive a child. Jennifer Schreiner and Angela Bauer, the couple in question, found William Marotta not through a sperm bank, but through his own online advertising offering to sell his sperm to whoever would buy it.

 

The couple and William signed a document that freed him from any financial responsibility once the child was born, and seemingly the transaction was rather amicable. Yet, when the couple fell on hard financial times, they petitioned the government to declare William Marotta the legal father, and thus financially responsible for the now 4-year-old child.

 

When the case was taken before a judge he ruled that a man may only be considered a sperm-donor if he goes through a doctor or an official sperm bank and that the document signed at the time of the transaction was not legally valid.

 

William Marotta is in the process of appealing the ruling.

 

Emilio Garcia
Deputy Editor, The Unshackled
Host of the Front and Center Podcast
www.frontandcenter.net.au
@FrntAndCenter

  • Becki Eckhart

    really? you sure about that? dude..don’t lie for clicks. it’s hard enough on men fighting for equal parenting. http://www.cjonline.com/news/2016-11-28/shawnee-county-judge-topeka-sperm-donor-william-marotta-not-legally-child-s-father

    • SlyNine

      That’s a different issue. Men should be able to opt in to fatherhood, but it shouldn’t be forced onto them.

      When you adopt your child away you don’t pay child support. So don’t give me the line about being responsible. Men get screwed on both sides of this, because they have 0 rights regarding paternal involvement.

  • Jennifer Roback Morse Phd

    Not the whole story. They went to get welfare. The state of Kansas insisted they name a father. The state went after him for child support. The reason the state won, is that they did not use the services of a doctor or clinic. So, as far as the govt is concerned, he is a daddy just like any other daddy. That is the reasoning behind this judgment. I wrote about this a while back. The article on which the post was based has been removed… Sorry about that. http://www.ruthinstitute.org/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=1392245&A=SearchResult&SearchID=31361834&ObjectID=1392245&ObjectType=55

    • SlyNine

      It’s still bullshit. When women give children up for adoption, when women drop kids off at safe houses. Not to mention abortion, they have NO responsibility to pay for their children. A big part of the argument was she should be able to control her life if she’s not ready.

      Men have no reproductive rights.

    • Gail Finke

      That’s a bizarre ruling, and I don’t think either sperm “donation” or “surrogate motherhood” should be legal. Seems to me that if they do not accept this contract, they invalidate ALL private contracts.

    • Marilyn

      Even in situations not like this it’s wrong to go after the father due to the mother being on welfare.

    • bsroon

      Still totally bullshit. How come law and contracts are suddenly MORE law and MORE contractual if a person with a couple of letters is involved in the transaction? That’s garbage. This is a legal situation, not a medical one.
      There was a signed contract. These women with the collusion of the state disregarded and ultimately invalidated the contract.

      So now i feel zero compunction to obey any contract i might be under, because hey, it only counts if the so-called “authorities” say it does.

      • Malcolm Smith

        As I said before, the contract is void because a mother cannot sign away her child’s right to its father’s support.

  • Pooua

    Fake news. The judge decided two years ago that the man was not liable.

  • George Lee

    What did they put on the birth certificate for the father, turkey baster?

  • Malcolm Smith

    I can’t see what is the legal problem. He deliberately made an unmarried woman pregnant. This is a despicable act. Of course the agreement they signed is invalid. A woman cannot sign away her child’s right to the father’s support.