http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2221433,00.html

Sperm donor to lesbian couple forced to pay child support


Rachel Williams
Tuesday December 4, 2007
The Guardian


A firefighter who donated sperm to a lesbian couple said yesterday
that he was being made to pay child support for their son and
daughter, in a case believed to be the first of its kind in Britain.
Andy Bathie, 37, said the women, who approached him five years ago
after other male friends declined to become donors, assured him he
would have no personal or financial involvement in the children's
upbringing. But he said the Child Support Agency contacted him last
November and made him take a £400 paternity test, then demanded
support payments because the couple had split up.


Article continues

----------------------------------------------------------------------------Legally, only men who donate sperm through licensed fertility clinics
do not become the father of any children conceived using their
donation.
Proposed legislation, at committee stage in the House of Lords before
passing to the Commons, would give equal parenting rights, including
financial responsibilities, to both members of same sex couples, but
the change will come too late for Bathie, who is lobbying for the laws
to be made retrospective and for him not to be seen as the legal
parent of the children, now aged two and four.

"These women wanted to be parents and take on the responsibilities
that brings. I would never have agreed to this unless they had been a
committed family. And now I can't afford to have children with my own
wife - it's crippling me financially," he told the Evening Standard.

At the time of his donation, Bathie was in a relationship with a woman
who was not planning to have children, but he has since married
someone else.

"I did look into the legal side and understood that as a couple they
would be the parents, not me. I was never daddy. They wanted children
as a couple, which means they should take responsibility. The CSA
admit that mine is an unusual case - this is double standards."

A spokeswoman for the CSA said: "Unless the child is legally adopted,
both biological parents are financially responsible; the Child Support
Agency legislation is not gender or partnership based.

Natalie Gamble, a fertility law expert at Lester Aldridge, who has
advised Bathie, said the case was the first of its kind she had come
across. "Currently a non-birth mother in this situation is not
automatically recognised as the parent in law, so she is not
financially responsible. If the law being proposed was to apply in
Andy's case, his responsibility for the child would be passed to the
non-birth mother."

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority warned that "DIY"
donors using methods such as unlicensed websites or home insemination
were financially liable for their offspring.

Phil Willis MP, chairman of the innovation, universities and skills
select committee, which deals with human fertilisation and research,
said: "The CSA has to look very carefully at the issue. I suspect he
won't get his money back, as there would be a flood of similar
applications."


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Note - there are over a dozen like this that I've come across over the
years.
Sperm donor but not through a clinic, and lesbian parents.

Martin  <><