Sperm Donor forced to pay Child Support

[Traianvs]

has paid up to $1,520 a month in support since losing the case at trial

I'd end up in the gutter myself if this happened to me!

[Last Conformist]

If the man is going to be held responsible no matter what, sperm banks are not gonna be around for too long.

[Dinner]

Here's a nice quote from Australia. http://www.over-the-rainbow.org/main/topic9_5.htm

A sperm donor who donates sperm anonymously through a fertility treatment clinic is not recognised legally as the father of the child. This means he does not have any right to see the child, nor does he have to provide financial support.

Victoria is the only State which allows the child, once they turn 18, to find out who the sperm donor is through the donor register.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3414141.stm The BBC reports that a new British law would require children to be able to find out donor's names when they reach 18 but that the donors cannot be held financial responsible for children.

http://members.tripod.com/ABORN.Webring/Ca.html A state court in California has ruled that donors be forced to reveal their identies if the children have certain medical conditions. The ruling does not effect the fact that donors are not financially responsible.

BTW to be consistent with your belief that no parent can willingly give up their responsiblity to their biological children then you must feel that adoption is nonviable. After all in adoptions a parent is giving up total responsibility for the child but you claim no one has the ability to do that.

[Ben Kenobi]

while ideally that sounds good, our entire society is based on contracts. If a contract cannot be enforced, what good is it.

Contracts can only be upheld if they do not violate some other principle. For example, it would not be right to hire someone for less than minimum wage, even if that person signed the contract.

This would be a similar situation.

[Whaleboy]

Whaleboy: We have an environmental law here in the States called CERCLA, whereby it is impossible to foist responsibility for your pollution onto somebody else through a contract. The greater justice requires a company to pay for its pollution, even though it believes it has signed those responsibilities away. Companies are required to pay, even if there is no certain knowledge of how much they polluted or if the company knew where it did its polluting.

What I mean by environmental is indirectly consequential... butterflies and hurricanes kinda thing, but if you post that example as a response that that I shall answer by saying that where the environment directly concerns everyone, this does not. The tax costs to you as an individual are negligible as a result of this case. You'll note of course that there is no CERCLA law for cases involving individuals like this, particularly regarding a claim of one individual against another, affected by highly subjective ideas such as that of responsibility. The question of pollution is clear cut and thus a limit to the power of a contract. Just as I cannot contractually absolve someone of the charge of second-degree murder because I consent to him killing me. This is a different matter.

This has nothing to do with an overbearing state, or Marxism, or whatever. It's entirely workable.

If you are saying that those who are indirectly responsible have to contribute according to either their degree of responsibility at the expense of the responsibility of those that one might call "directly responsible" (in this case the woman), or generally be considered equally responsible, that is fundamentally a Marxist concept, indeed was part of Sartres split between his existentialism and Marxism. Funny how we always remember him as the former . As for it being entirely workable, while I concur with regards to corporations or large-scale individual pollution, you won't find it as easy with individuals and arbitrary cases.

[Dinner]

Sweden recently passed a law saying sperm donors must pay child support and as a result the donor business has almost ceased to exist in Sweden. Now most Swedish couples travel to Denmark because Danish law still protects the anonimity of sperm donors.

[Ben Kenobi]

I think I speak for most of OT where I say that if its anti-sex, anti-women, biblephile, inconsistent or completely unworkable, we're be more suprised if you didn't find it "reasonable"

The overly feminist judges in Pennsylvania seem to agree with me here, so does that make the feminists anti-woman, and anti-sex?

And these feminists don't use biblical principles, so why does me liking the bible have anything to do with this issue?

inconsistent or completely unworkable

Where is my reasoning inconsistent? Please show the flaw.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Contracts can only be upheld if they do not violate some other principle. For example, it would not be right to hire someone for less than minimum wage, even if that person signed the contract.

This would be a similar situation.

So a couple which adopts a child can sue to get child support from the biological parents? That just doesn't make sense. You are wrong.

[Whaleboy]

Contracts can only be upheld if they do not violate some other principle. For example, it would not be right to hire someone for less than minimum wage, even if that person signed the contract.

On the contrary, when I joined an employment agency, I signed away my right to work no more than X hours, and signed up to 48 / week (fortunately hasn't been needed). We have our rights, but also a right to sign them/some away. Where we draw the line is a tough one. I could be an annoying purist and say all of them, but for the purposes of this debate, we shall say that as a mirror to the way things are at the moment, all but important human rights can be signed away.

But that is beside the point. Why wouldn't it be right to ask that someone sign away their rights in order to get something in return? They are free to sign or not to and we assume they understand the decision.

[Ben Kenobi]

So a couple which adopts a child can sue to get child support from the biological parents? That just doesn't make sense. You are wrong.

Different principles.

The biological parents can sign a contract to have their child taken care of by another person. This is what happens in an adoption.

In this case, you have an agreement between the biological parents, that one can be absolved of his responsibilities to the other, and to his child, without adoption.

I don't think it can be done, to absolve the father of his responsibilities to the other biological parent.

[DanS]

Oerdin: I was answering Azazel's assertion with regard to deceit, not about sperm banks. I had no question about sperm donors going through a sperm bank being on the hook to pay, although consistency and society's/child's interests would seem to dictate that he should pay.

BTW to be consistent with your belief that no parent can willingly give up their responsiblity to their biological children then you must feel that adoption is nonviable. After all in adoptions a parent is giving up total responsibility for the child but you claim no one has the ability to do that.

I thought about this a lot before jumping into this discussion. One line of argument is that society and the child are sufficiently covered upon adoption. Another line of argument is that society can choose to not recognize the responsibility -- such as happens now -- if it believes that this nonrecognition is overall advantageous to society and the child.

However, even if those are very strong arguments, I recognize that adoptive parents are given a small helping hand by the state, such as tax breaks and subsidies. If the natural parents are able to cover these tax breaks and subsidies, then I believe that they should be forced to pay.

[Ben Kenobi]

We have our rights, but also a right to sign them/some away.

Do we have the right to sign our own rights away? To sign ourselves into slavery to others?

all but important human rights can be signed away.

So you do not believe that a law that establishes a minimum wage is an important human right?

Why wouldn't it be right to ask that someone sign away their rights in order to get something in return? They are free to sign or not to and we assume they understand the decision.

If the agreement violates another principle, then that person who has signed the contract can annul the contract. If a person has the right to sign away his rights, he also has the right to pick them up again when he chooses to do so.

[Whaleboy]

Where is my reasoning inconsistent? Please show the flaw.

Where am I taking the piss? EVERYWHERE!!!

Your reasoning and consistency (you say X which leads to Y and you accept Y) is usually ok (which is rare on this forum ), but I tend to find your premises flawed and your views unable to form a dialectic. That's not a personal attack that's a recommendation that you be more flexible and accept that other people can provide stronger arguments...a debate is not a d*ck size contest.

I don't think it can be done, to absolve the father of his responsibilities to the other biological parent.

See my blimp example. Am I responsible for an ensuing child? If so, why/how?

[Ben Kenobi]

See my blimp example. Am I responsible for an ensuing child? If so, why/how?

In the blimp example, can you reasonably expect a child to result from your actions?

The same cannot be said for sperm donation, as that is the whole purpose of the donation. You can reasonably expect, that a woman will use your sperm to produce a child.

Therefore I can cite false analogy.

[Dinner]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-06-14-wolff_x.htm

A ruling in the state of Washington.

But since Kepl, who is married to someone else, fathered Brock's children by donating sperm at a University of Washington fertility clinic to help her get pregnant through in vitro fertilization (IVF), the law enables him to escape paying child support.

At least according to the Washington state appeals court, sperm donors don't have any parental rights — or any parental responsibilities — without a contract that specifically states that they do.

Having read several articles it seems that many couples want donors to be anonymous because if he is not anonymous then he can sue for parental rights. The donor must pay child support if he seeks rights but as long as he doesn't then he has no financial responsibility.