Week 5 Post 2- Sperm Donation

    Sperm donation is seen very differently from egg donation/surrogacy in public perception, mainly because of the differing business models, with sperm banks being seen as large corporate operations and very business-like and egg clinics being seen as less mass-produced and more "homey". Case law primarily focuses on sperm donation and the conflicts with the legal process rather than egg donation because egg donation is seen as less of a transaction that needs to be mediated on than sperm donation is. There are three main factors that determine what type of sperm donation is occurring-whether the donation is paid or unpaid, whether the donor is known or unknown by the recipient, and whether the donation is anonymous or open release. In the case of open release the information of the sperm donor can be released to the child under certain conditions, such as age of the child, and requests of the child and mother/legal father. However, while anonymous sperm donors' information will not be released to the child advancements in genetic technology have allowed people to figure out who their genetic father is. Most cases about sperm donation involve the legality of parenthood of the donor, so they are usually about known donors who are not anonymous, and therefore not from a bank. There are two main types of cases, one where the sperm donor is trying to receive legal rights to the child, which can occur after the donor has relinquished rights to the child, or when the mother of the child asks them to relinquish rights on the basis that they had previously agreed that the donor would not have parental rights. The other type of case is when the mother tries to instate parental rights for the donor that they do not wish to have, usually to get some type of finical support from the father. One case where the donor tries to gain legal fatherhood of the child born from the donation is the R.C. case, in which an unmarried woman asked her acquaintance to be her sperm donor, to which he agreed and she was clinically inseminated. After the birth of her baby she cited a statue to him saying that he had no legal right to parenthood and that she would not let him see the child unless he relinquished his right. This promoted him to go to court to assert his legal parenthood, arguing that the woman had led him to believe he would be allowed to act as the father to the child, and that he had taken many actions to support the child before and after it was born. The statute that was in contention said that if a woman was inseminated by someone other than her husband the man would not be considered the legal father. The problem that had to be determined was whether the private contract that was allegedly implied between the two was able to supersede the statute in place by the public law, which can happen frequently if the court is able to look at other rulings. Both of the rulings the looked at, from California and New Jersey are distinguishable, or significantly different, from this case, but they both focused on the same conclusion, which is that the best interest of the child should be considered. The court decided that having another stable parent in the child's life would be in their best interest, so the donor was given paternal rights. Another case regarding sperm donation is Ferguson v. Mckiernan, where the mother of the child of sperm donation was trying to establish parental responsibilities to the father, so she could obtain child support from him. The two had previously been in a romantic relationship, but at the time of the donation were just friends. The mother, Ferguson, had said she would relieve the donor, Mckiernan, of any responsibilities, and that they would keep the insemination from Ferguson's husband. Mckiernan was not involved in the child's life, and had even moved out of state and had remarried and had children when Ferguson called him to request child support, which led them to a court battle. The court decided that the case was essentially the same as one where the sperm donor was anonymous, because of the lack of contact and pervious support from the donor, and because his identity was hidden from everyone but the mother. Since the court did not want to set a precedent that somewhat known, or even known sperm donors could be held liable for the children their sperm was used to create, because they believed it would lessen known or somewhat  known donations, so they ruled that Mckiernan did not have parental rights and responsibilities. They also argued that since Mckiernan said he would have not have donated if he knew he would be held to be the father, and that, due to the non-identity problem, it is always better to be alive than not alive, it was in the best interest of the child to not give Mckiernan parental rights.

    Learning about the different ways the court views paternity with regards to sperm donation is important when learning about bioethics because it underscores ethical beliefs about how the courts, which are often operating on public policy, view the legitimacy and responsibilities of non-traditional families/genetic groupings. Making judgements based on the interactions and backgrounds of the two parties makes an ethical position on how relationships between parents and children should be, as in the case where the donor had contact with the child he was granted paternity, and in the case where there  was very little contact the donor was not. The courts are also making ethical claims behind many of their arguments. In the RC case the decision was made with the underlying ethical implication that a child with two parents will have a better life than one, which is sort of forcing together a nuclear traditional family, which is important to understand, as the science used to create these problems are often untraditional. So while there is still new types of families and relationships created with bio-reproductive technology there is still traditional institutional beliefs being imposed.