Posted on 08/23/2005 4:33:44 AM PDT by grundle
http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/Patriot_News_Sperm_donor_loses_appeal_child_support_23JUL04.htm
Sperm donor loses appeal on child support
The Patriot News, Friday, July 23, 2004, BY REGGIE SHEFFIELD of The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A.
The state Superior Court yesterday ruled that a man must pay child support to a woman who conceived twin boys with his sperm through in vitro fertilization.
The opinion upholds a Dauphin County Court order filed in 2002.
Joel L. McKiernan now must pay up to $1,500 each month, but he argued that an oral agreement he had with Ivonne V. Ferguson protected him from any payments, according to court papers.
When McKiernan agreed to be a sperm donor for Ferguson -- a co-worker with whom he had had an affair between 1991 and 1993 -- she promised she would never seek support payments from him, court documents said. But in 1999, she began seeking support.
Superior Court Judge Patrick R. Tamilia wrote that the oral contract between McKiernan and Ferguson is essentially worthless, because the rights for child support belong to the twins, not to either parent.
"The oral agreement between the parties that [McKiernan] would donate his sperm in exchange for being released from any obligation for any child conceived, on its face, constitutes a valid contract," Tamilia wrote in a six-page decision.
"Based on legal, equitable and moral principles, however, it is not enforceable," Tamilia wrote.
Efforts to reach Ferguson and McKiernan were unsuccessful.
According to the court papers, Ferguson persuaded McKiernan to donate his sperm for in vitro fertilization in 1993, when their relationship waned. Ferguson was married, but her husband filed for divorce on the day she underwent the IVF procedure, court papers said.
On Aug. 25, 1994, Ferguson gave birth to the twins. She listed her ex-husband, not McKiernan, as the biological father on the birth certificate, according to court papers.
McKiernan had little contact with Ferguson during this time, other than visiting her in the hospital when she was in labor and spending an afternoon with her and the boys two years later, court documents said.
Elizabeth Stone, a family law attorney, said that Pennsylvania law very clearly holds that the right to child support belongs to the children and not the parents.
"Even though the child is a minor, he cannot in any way extend that right to the parent," Stone said. "So even a contract can be immediately invalidated by running to the court and filing for support."
With in vitro fertilization, a sperm cell and egg cell are combined outside the woman's body, and the resulting embryo is placed in her uterus. About 1 million children have been conceived through in vitro fertilization, which was first done in 1978.
The issue of child support and in vitro fertilization has found its way into court in other jurisdictions.
REGGIE SHEFFIELD
Copyright 2004 The Patriot-News
Either that, or don’t claim to be against judicial activism except when it supports the left’s agenda.
I think the when men participate in a system that makes it seem like their reproductive behavior has no consequence, they are in for a rude awakening, though not necessarily an undeserved one.
And yes, women should not use sperm banks, and companies should not be allowed to offer such services unless they are willing to financially support to full adulthood the children and unimplanted embryos they create.
If that is true, then why didn't the court wait until the twins were old enough to request the child support for themselves?
OK. They couldn't. So "mommy" does it for them. But the child support is not for "her". A distinction without a difference.
Plus, if "mom" can represent them at all, can she not also waive the support on their behalf (orally)?
Finally doesn't "mom" have a profound finacial conflict of interest?
It's stuff like this that make me glad to be seriously thinking about getting snipped.
I’m reading an implication that those who anonymously donated to sperm banks with every legal expectation that they would not be identified deserve to have their contracts invalidated and be held financially responsible.
I’m not strongly on either side of how future donations should be structured, just very against changing the rules after the fact in a way that hurts people who had every reason to believe they were legally protected. It’s like going after gun manufacturers or fast food for deaths.
Okay, if you want to make it a law for future guns manufactured or cheeseburgers grilled, go ahead. Write a law and put it to a vote. Otherwise, this is just like that, judicial activism from the right. And most importantly, it validates judicial activism from the left.
Yup.
- So what have we learned today?
- If you're not willing to accept responsibility for your offspring, leave the procriation to those who do.
And would you do it with the understanding that under certain circumstances you may be held responsible for the welfare of the offspring created by your donation?
Let me make sure I undestand your position.
The mother is free to choose to kill the child in utero, and there are no further "rights" to talk about?
That makes sense to you? She can kill it but not exercise rights on his behalf?
Strange game.
The only way to win is not to play...
Again, I would. I have been thinking about donating for some time.
However, if I were this guy, I would sue the people that mixed up the Petri-dish shooter.
You're reading right, but I can't change natural law: the donor is the father. Any law that says otherwise is smoke and mirrors to trick the child out of something.
I can see a LOT of children suing successfully in the future. I hope it is a rude enough awakening to tear this whole industry down.
PS - I do feel sorry for men who, out of foolishness, donate thinking that their act has no parental consequence. But that pity doesn't relieve them of the biological fact of their responsibility for new human life. One of those responsibilities is financial. A greater one is to love their children, and this is a system that blatantly denies and seeks to destroy that bond between parent and offspring.
Sorry to sound harsh or mule-headed. It's just what I believe, and most men should be told it before the ____-off in a cup so they can buy CDs in college or, if they're athletes or MENSA material, so they can spread their glorious hubris to generations beyond our own.
A verbal agreement is worth the paper it's written on.
This is all about government playing sugar daddy to female voters. Men are to be squeezed for every damn dime they have, men have to rigths what so ever in our new feminized "it's all for the children" society the women have created.
In the old days this women would have found a husband, and made a life, no longer now Uncle Sugar Daddy Sam, plays the role of provider. There are lot's of single moms that men would marry, but why should a women marry when Uncle Sugar Daddy Sam pays her bills? She is free to do whatever she wants and Uncle Sam will squeeze the money go out whoever she points her finger at.
Oh and don't give me the DNA BS, it is already established that with out without DNA evidence, even with DNA PROVING the man is not the father the man STILL PAYS. Woman now openly rule, girly men handed society and their balls over without a fight, so now yall are going to pay hell, many many fatherless, disrespected nothing to lose, young men growing up in the USA and lots lots more coming, have fun dealing with them.
Here's the way I see things:
There is the law (of man and lawyers) and then there is THE LAW.
The law gets complicated, but THE LAW is plain.
Sperm donors should have to sign the following agreement (no small print):
THE LAW states: Procreation is the most serious responsibility any human can undertake during his/her lifetime.
As a sperm donor, you will always, under any circumstances be POTENTIALLY responsible for the care and welfare of your biological offspring.
Furthermore, your parental rights may be taken away under certain circumstances, but your parental responsibilities may never be relinquished.
THE LAW shall supercede any other laws, agreements or covenants entered into, written or implied, always and forever until the end of time.
By donating your sperm you understand and agree to hold yourself to THE LAW.
If you do not understand or agree with THE LAW, please refrain from dabbling in procreation.
If you understand and agree with THE LAW, please sign below, and then take your magazine and proceed to the first available stall on the left.
.........................................
THE LAW applies equally to egg donors.
B: The mother is free to choose to kill the child in utero, and there are no further "rights" to talk about?
I'm sorry... how exactly did you get from point A (what I said) to point B (what you heard)??
Did I say a man should pay if he's not the biological father? That's someone else's argument. I said a man should pay if he is the biological father.
--Again, I would.
That's great. I see nothing wrong with that.
I'm sorry, but you lost me on that last sentence. I don't understand.
Government should get the hell out of the marriage business, the child raising businees and the family business and leave men and women to work out things (like getting married, having children, and supporting the family) out by themselves. But that's not going to happen, to many girly men and self rightious women out to save the world for that to ever happen.
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