Kansas Demands Child Support Payments From Sperm Donor

We have been following cases where sperm donors have been held for child support or alternatively sought parental rights. The latest such case is out of Kansas where the state is pursuing a sperm donor for child support. William Marotta responded to an advertisement by a lesbian couple to donate sperm, but, after the couple split up, the state insisted on being given his name as the father and pursued him for monthly support payments.

Angela Bauer and her former partner, Jennifer Schreiner, put the advertisement on Craig’s list in March 2009 and Marotta decided to help out. Recently he was told that the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF) recently compelled Bauer to reveal the name as a condition for state support. Since the state does not recognize same-sex marriage, the couple had to adopt the child. They adopted a total of eight children during over the course of their relationship. This appears the only child by artificial insemination. The couple elected to artificially inseminate Schreiner. Bauer cannot support the child without state support due to an illness. The state said that if the parents did not reveal the donor’s name, it would withhold health benefits. Marotta, a 46-year-old machinist, believes that the state is actually targeting him out of hostility for same-sex couples.

Ironically, since the state does not recognize same-sex marriage, it cannot collect child support from the women.

Marotta signed an agreement relinquishing all legal claims to the child but the state insists that this does not relieve him of child support obligations. He is fighting the agency action though he is facing high legal costs.

Source: Washington Post