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Court Says Craigslist Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "David Stout reports at Time Magazine that what began with a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple calling for a sperm donor in rural Topeka, Kansas ended in court on Wednesday with a judge ordering the sperm donor to pay child support. The Kansas Department for Children and Families filed the case in October 2012 seeking to have William Marotta declared the father of a child born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009 so he can be held responsible for about $6,000 in public assistance the state provided, as well as future child support. 'In this case, quite simply, the parties failed to perform to statutory requirement of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician at some point in the artificial insemination process, and the parties' self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental right and responsibilities to the child,' wrote Judge Mattivi. Marotta opposed that action, saying he had contacted Schreiner and her partner at the time, Angela Bauer, in response to an ad they placed on Craigslist seeking a sperm donor and signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities. 'We stand by that contract,' says Defense attorney Swinnen adding that the Kansas statute doesn't specifically require the artificial insemination be carried out by a physician. 'The insinuation is offensive, and we are responding vigorously to that. We stand by our story. There was no personal relationship whatsoever between my client and the mother, or the partner of the mother, or the child. Anything the state insinuates is vilifying my client, and I will address it.'"
Second of all, if you cannot have children in a normal way then maybe you shouldn't be fucking over the people that help you have one in an abnormal way.
While I broadly agree, it doesn't appear the lesbian couple actually asked for the guy to pay child support; that was all on the state's initiative.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I was almost victim of the vicious child support system. It's damned ridiculous. It has gotten to the point that everyone is better off avoiding anything going into public record. It's basically too late to say that though.
My ex-wife was illegally claiming my sons when collecting welfare in California. She apparently didn't need to present anything more than their social security numbers because she filed and started getting money. Meanwhile, the state tracked me down in my home state and contacted their child support services office to start extracting money from my pay.
There was just one problem. I had my sons with me and had them for quite some time. I contacted my state's office and they said there was nothing they could do. I have the children in question. One would think this is a slam-dunk. No. I requested they contact the school they were enrolled in to confirm they were with me. She wouldn't do it. It's not her job to validate -- just to do things to people. So I ended up taking the kids from school with copies of all the records I could collect and went down to her office in person. What could have been resolved with a phone call and some faxes had to be done at the inconvenience of my sons and a day's pay from me because I had to take the day off of work to resolve it.
It was resolved. But it was stupid. What people can do without proof has to be fought and even lost with insurmountable evidence to the contrary. There are cases where a person was charged with paternity, proven he wasn't the father and still shackled with child support. Why? Because he spent time with the mother and the child. That goes beyond reason. They've got it both ways. It's biology. It's relationships.
So take it from me and every sad case out there. If you see a single mother, stay the hell away from her. She's a disease. I know that sounds completely awful and it is. But the system was built this way and single mothers take advantage of it far too often. Fathers are guilty until proven innocent and many are still punished afterward. Women are never held accountable for their actions and no one can expect otherwise. The only reasonable way to protect is to treat them as if they were a contagion. The situation is dangerous. Purely dangerous. And the greater the danger, the more extreme the measures one must take to protect one's self.
Sorry ladies... sorry kids. Blame the system and stop using it. If you want to depend on a man to take care of you and your children? How about taking care of him in return and making a family? Also, how about selecting a good man instead of "an exciting one" and being a good person yourself. I know it sounds stupidly old fashioned and somehow out of date, but there is a reason those ancient ideals were formed in ages past and the reasons they were needed then are the same as the reaons they are needed today.
I was lucky. The game didn't quite work in their case though I am sure if they tried to press it, it would have worked anyway. My eyes were opened to the situations out there and they are huge and tragic. Don't let labels like "deadbeat dad" fool you. Women are not innocent in any of this. They hold the control and the leverage and will use it when it suits them.
The kid has two parents, so you could get the mother's partner to pay up rather than the father. The other woman explicitly chose to be a parent, thus the burden should be her responsibility. Why aren't they? Perhaps because this guy has more income so he's the guy they can extract money from, or perhaps they just think the law is written heteronormatively enough that this will work better.
I don't know the breakdown of $6000 of assistance but I wouldn't just assume that's over and above what another parent might get without more information, since there are numerous tax effects of having a kid. I'm not assuming the other way either. It's just really hard to infer from no information whatsoever.
Note that the state doesn't stop the extremely poor from having a kid together, and then target the midwife for child support payments. Why should this be any different? There were two parents signed up. If the state doesn't like the poor having kids, maybe the state can consider a solution that affects all poor people having kids (it's easy to imagine that going wrong, but it's an option).
On a social level, it's basically making babies without parental responsibility, and without the fun of sex or the possibility of venereal disease. I don't see how you could in good conscience make babies with the intent of selling them off.
I think the problem is in your definition of parent. I don't think semen is a baby, or that ejaculation creates a parent. I believe the role of parent is one that should be entered into voluntarily. For instance: A woman in the USA should be allowed to take birth control pills. A woman should be able to have an abortion if she decides to not be a parent. She should be able to give a child up for adoption if she doesn't want it. Currently a mother can drop her child off at any safe-house, no questions asked, no 18 years of child support, and she doesn't even have to tell anyone (not even the father) that a child was born.
Now, I don't think a man should have control over a woman's body just because she's impregnated with his sperm. He shouldn't be able to force her to abort or carry to term his child. However, since Motherhood is voluntary in the USA, then in the interest of equality, Fatherhood should be voluntary too. A woman is not required by law to inform her partner about her taking of birth control, or forgetting to take it. A man should be able to wear a condom if he wants to. A man should be able to get a vasectomy without consulting with his partner (doctors frequently prevent the latter). A woman can choose not to carry the child, or to give it up for adoption or drop it off at a safe house, so a man should be allowed to opt-out of fatherhood as the woman can.
If the woman knows she can not force a man to be a father against his will, then maybe she will make different choices about bringing a life into the world she can not support -- or opt to give it up for adoption. The lesbian couple agreed to become parents, the sperm donor did not. When the lesbians split up, the other woman who was not pregnant but had agreed to be a parent should be the one paying child support -- It was these mothers' voluntarily agreeing to become parents, then reneging late in the game that caused the situation where child support was necessary. The lesbian couple adopted a donor's sperm and agreed to carry out the parenting roles that come with having a baby. That adoption is such a racket these days is a related, but altogether different matter. However, it's interesting that even in adoption you have people voluntarily entering parenthood -- The state doesn't just force people to raise a child against their will... unless the person is a man.
It's quite heinous to force a child to be raised by people who do not want it. Indeed, to prevent mothers from abandoning their babies in dumpsters we have the no-questions asked safe-house drop off. Men shouldn't control women's bodies, but it's ridiculous to not give men any reproduction rights at all, especially when allowing them to opt-out of fatherhood well before the child is born doesn't limit a woman's choices in the least: She can still decide to be a mother or not. It's quite telling that feminists actually lobby against even such small degree of male reproductive rights, meanwhile claiming to be in favour of, "Equality". This is why I support Women's Rights, not feminism: Part of the problem is that the mother's lesbian partner was not given the right to be the child's parent. Granted, there are official means for sperm donors to help the couple out, but in the interest of equality and fairness the Judge shouldn't have required the donor to pay child support -- He only recognized half of the lesbian couple's right to voluntary parenthood.
Education benefits from parental involvement. A sperm donor would be depriving the children of those useful resources.
You are delusional if you think that two lesbian women would necessarily be depriving their child of the useful resources of education and parental involvement.
Doesn't the child have two parents (both women)?
Why are they unable to support the child they wanted?
The system is amazingly difficult to fix. Every judge, for example, is under intense scrutiny by women's groups. These 'charities' literally pay people to sit in court and observe cases and when the ruling is in favor of the man, it is brought into question and appeals are even paid for, at times, by these same charities to bring about the result they seek.
This is not about justice or fairness. Men tend to be ignorant of these things and simply live by naive ideals I wish we could all live under. My son, for example, has been seeing this girl for maybe two months at most now. He just took her to planned parenthood for birth control pills. I'm probably going to become a grandfather soon. He doesn't understand it. She is "taking control of the birth control issue for him." There are some things I can tell him and a lot more I cannot... you know, because he already knows everything and has it all under control. As a man who has lived through that scam, I know what it leads to. It's a future where he's locked in and she's happily indulging her biological instincts.
He will likely end up giving his life for her. And I don't mean dying. People define life as death. I don't get that. Life is every day of every moment you are alive. When you are forced by law under threat of imprisonment to give up your money and your time, it's not a choice. The choice is, was and remains hers at all times. If a mother wants to stop being a mother, she CAN! Can a father? Nope. Not ever. Why is that?
It's the system. A sexist system. And people like you? I can't tell if you're male or female and it doesn't matter. You can't believe in justice if you believe this is just. The system only punishes men even when it is the woman's fault.
There are more generalizations about men that are true than about women. So let's talk about men since you are one and so am I.
1. Men don't usually initiate relationships. Women do. They make the choice more than men do.
2. Women hold the box of sex and control it and use it to their advantage. (I don't hold this against women, I would do the same if I could. This is not 'about men' exactly but still an important point.)
3. Men don't usually end relationships. Women do. Men generally want no changes... just to keep on doing what they do. It's women who are famous for wanting change.
4. A man, kept happy, will remain completely loyal and devoted to his partner. Trouble is most often a man doesn't just usually leave on a whim. Things have to be pretty bad for him to want to change his life...even endanger his life by leaving a woman.
So consider that when you cite women abandoned by men. What causes a man to act against his normal nature and behavior. What impetus drives a man away?
Were I a wiser man when I was younger, I would have abandoned my wife long ago. Why? Because she fought loudly and violently. Neighbors would call police and when they came, she answered their questions about "ma'am? did he hurt you?" with "yes." It was a lie but the system... it doesn't allow police to make such determinations. She said it, he gets arrested. I should have ended things with the first incident. I didn't. She later recanted her claims to the police and I was released to go back to work earning money for her to spend... multiple times.
I'm a man. My manly sense says I will take care of my family no matter what it takes. Well? It nearly cost me my freedom. Trying to be a good man cost me a lot more than it should and certainly was more than negated by the harm of following my naive ideals. She left me. The results were nearly the same as if I left her. She went for public benefits and that started the state coming after me with their legal powers and all that.
Women don't have sex "just to trap men." No. That's precisely why I used the words " happily indulging her biological instincts." She's blameless. It's her body that makes her do it. It's not intentional. But then again, as a man, we know our bodies make us want to do things too. It's not an excuse for us. It's not one for women either... unless you are advocating that women are children and so not responsible for their actions or decisions.
You're correct, but isn't it sad?
If you really think it is so sad, why don't you call up the Kansas DCF, and volunteer to support the kid yourself? It may be sad that the responsibility is being forced on an unwilling dad, but it would be sadder if it was forced on unwilling taxpayers.
Because that's not allowed. Only parents can have any say in anything about a child. Except the police. And DCF. And the state legislature.
What's sad is that the state is using a technicality to override a valid contract, over the objections of all other parties. I wonder what impact this may have on parental rights contracts in adoptions? The issues are very similar - sign your parental rights over another party. So if an adoptive parent goes on welfare, can the welfare office retroactively cancel the adoption because it cost the state money?