Man Sues Fertility Clinic Alleging it Stole His Sperm

This is a new one: a man is suing a fertility clinic, alleging that his ex-girlfriend stole his sperm, and used it to get herself pregnant at the clinic by in vitro fertilization. Allegedly, she was motivated mostly by a desire to collect child support payments from her ex-boyfriend.

If the man’s allegations are true, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Obviously, a large amount of fault would lie with his ex: the act of bringing a child into the world for the sole purpose of collecting child support is pretty despicable. And (again, if the allegations are true), the fertility clinic would also bear a good deal of fault, for causing this man to father children without his consent.

The man’s lawsuit (.pdf) claims that the ex-girlfriend took used condoms with her to the fertility clinic, where his sperm was used to impregnate her. He claims that he never intended to have a child with the woman, and never sought treatment at the clinic.

As I said, if all this is true, a lot of people have a lot of explaining to do. However, the plaintiff in this case has quite a few evidentiary hurdles to overcome, as his story appears to have quite a few holes in it.

First of all, the fertility clinic claims that they have a consent form for in vitro fertilization which has the man’s signature on it. Also, the woman billed the plaintiff’s health insurance company for the procedure, which it paid, and the plaintiff did not contest these charges.

The plaintiff claims that the woman lied to him about the procedure she was having performed.

If these basic facts are true, the defendant, if she were a person with no scruples, would have a lot of financial incentive to attempt such a scheme. If she got away with it, she would arguably be entitled to half of the plaintiff’s assets. This is because Texas is a community property state, wherein half of the assets acquired by either spouse during a marriage are owned jointly by the spouses, with each of them holding a 50/50 interest in the assets, which must be divided in the event of divorce. Texas also recognizes common-law marriage, where a couple can be declared legally married, even if they never have a wedding ceremony or obtain a marriage license.

A common-law marriage is usually declared after the couple have lived together for many years, and held themselves out as husband and wife. Having children together is one factor that weighs extremely heavily in favor of finding that a relationship should be declared a common-law marriage.

The NY Post article I linked to above indicates that the woman went so far as to ask a court to declare the plaintiff her common-law husband, though the court denied her request, which seems to strongly suggest that they didn’t believe her version of events.

Thankfully, situations like this appear to be very rare. However, I’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing trend in the “fathers’ rights” camp that seems to be against court-ordered child support altogether, and claim that courts are dominated by bias against fathers in child support and custody disputes. They sometimes point to extreme cases like this one to drive their point home.

While I won’t deny that the family law system needs improvement, and judges should be given more flexibility in crafting fair child support arrangements, mandatory child support is an essential part of the social safety net.

Hopefully, cases such as this one don’t undermine public acceptance of the child support system.