Biological Referees

thatold55 writes "Here's a good article from the Christian Science Monitor on nontraditional custody issues. A couple of sections jumped out at me as I read it.

Click "Read More" for thatold55's observations.

From the article:

Also in California, a woman last week won a $1 million lawsuit against the fertility clinic which implanted her with the wrong embryo, mistakenly giving her one created using another client's sperm (rather than sperm donated anonymously) instead of an embryo from two anonymous donors. She learned of the error after her son was born, and has been engaged in a custody battle ever since. The sperm donor and his wife - who had another child from the same batch of embryos - insist the boy is their son. The woman who bore him considers him hers. A judge declared her the mother, the sperm donor the father, and the donor's wife no relation.

I have not heard about this case, but I would like to know if the "father" was given custodial rights to the child, or merely given the privilege of supporting the child?

In another case, a lesbian couple produced a child using artificial insemnination with an egg donated from one mother implanted into the birth mother. When the relationship failed, the birth mother wrote the egg donor mother out of the equation. What was interesting was the comment of the donor's attorney...

Jill Hersh, K.M.'s attorney, is convinced the case wouldn't even be an issue if her client wasn't a lesbian. "If they were married, the donor document would have been irrelevant, and if they were unmarried, but a man and a woman, they wouldn't let the man off the hook," she says. Ms. Hersh cites a recent Southern California case where an unmarried man, living with a woman and helping to raise her child, was judged a legal parent.

So basically, it sounds like the attorney is arguing the donor should be put on the hook, and given the privilege of supporting the child without equal custody?

Is it me, or are things kind of out of control?"

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