Was there a contract?
Does this mean that the "state" can summarily decide which contracts it wishes to honor, and which contracts it can ignore to suit its needs at the moment?
-PJ
Fatherhood is determined via biology. What, you hate science?
The State wants money and doesn’t care who pays as long as SOMEONE pays. There have been instances where men have been forced to pay child support for children their wives or girlfriends conceived with other men!
I believe any contract they created was between the three “adults” involved. When the one adult who kept the child decided the citizens of the state needed to pay for the child’s upbringing, the state’s rules for providing assistance came into play.
The state’s citizens were never consulted when they made their original arrangement. If they truly wanted to keep their little private arrangement, the two mommies should be providing for the child not the citizens of the state.
Colonial America established Bastardy Courts in order to determine the paternity of bastard children. Without a father, these children became wards of the state and the state was determined to ensure that the taxpayers would not be unnecessarily burdened by providing support (where has that notion gone?). Mothers of these children were dragged in front of the court and compelled to name the father. The fathers were then held liable for support.
The same principle is at play here. The interested parties are the child and the state. The state is claiming that they did not agree to the arrangement and therefore can still come after the father.
Moral of the story: NEVER, NEVER agree to be a sperm donor. You’ll be sorry.
It's a grey area when it comes to sperm donors, but with normal biological parents (married or unmarried), any contract between them as to child support is unenforceable because the unborn child was not a party to the contract and therefore didn't give up his or her right to support.
Even aside from that issue, every state has laws that contracts "against public policy" are unenforceable.
There was a contract. The state decided it was unenforceable, because it signed away the rights of the child.
The issue is that this situation is protected ONLY when the donation goes through a doctor (or a facility served by a doctor). The lesbian couple “tin-cupped” the donation through Craig’s List (with no money changing hands).
If Marotta wants to see his daughter, he only has to petition the court for parenting time. The contract is not binding on the state and is, probably, against public policy. If he were to ask, the court would find a way to integrate him into the child’s life over time and he would have regular parenting time. He has a constitutional right to know his biological child. The birth mother, on the other hand, could if she wished, probably exclude the “other mother” from the little girl’s life. I say “probably” because the issue of “psychological parent” has not been fully litigated in Kansas. A psychological parent is with whom the child has bonded. Kennedy in the landmark case Trullinger wrote a defense which set the ground work for this theory. In other states, if the court finds that the child has bonded to a third party, like domestic partner whether of same or different sex, then it can order visitation with that third party.
A child has a right to a whole constellation of natural goods from his or her parents: his identity, his name, his place in a kinship system, nurture, education, care, provision and inheritance. All of these begin with the first right: the right to a mother and father: the people who constituted his genetic identity and brought him into being. You can't sign away what your child needs to survive and flourish in this world.
If you don't want to be a father, make double-dang sure your sperm doesn't get inserted into a woman's genital tract.
That's simple enough, isn't it?
I'll vote for the child's rights every time.