Excerpt from: NPR (click for full article)
A Kansas man's decision to donate sperm to help a lesbian couple conceive a child in 2009 has landed him in a complicated legal case, as a state agency is now pursuing him for child support payments. William Marotta, 46, is asking a judge to dismiss the case, which has grabbed national attention.
"In 1994, the state of Kansas passed a law regulating sperm donorship that said a person was not responsible" as a parent, Hrenchir tells Robert, "as long as they had a medical doctor carry out the insemination. A medical doctor was not used for this particular insemination."
The state law is based on the idea that a doctor can certify that the donor is in fact not connected with the child's mother — "and not, for example, a boyfriend who's posing as a sperm donor, but should actually be required to help support the child."
The issue came to the state's attention when Schreiner applied for Medicaid. She eventually gave the donor contract to a caseworker. The Kansas Department for Children and Families is now seeking to have him named the father of the child, and thus liable for child support.
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