Keep Your Sperm to Yourself
A good thing as long as you go through the proper channels!
When William Marotta of Topeka, Kansas decided to donate his sperm, he never expected it to come back to haunt him. But that’s exactly what happened recently when the state declared him financially responsible for a child spawned from his genetic material.
In 2009, Marotta replied to a Craig’s List advertisement by a local lesbian couple and eventually sent them several free cups of his sperm.
“I donated the genetic material,” he told WIBW. “And that was it for me.”
Unfortunately, that wasn’t it. Although Marotta expected the lesbian couple to visit a physician for a proper insemination, that never happened. I suppose the couple heard that each insemination attempt costs $3000 and selected the cheaper “turkey baster” method. Who can blame them?
One of the women gave birth to a daughter and for a time, it seemed as if everything worked out for the best. Then the couple separated and one of them got sick and stopped working. She applied to the state for help and that’s when Marotta got the call about child support.
William Marotta of Topeka (courtesy of USA Today)
Now he’s expected to make another donation, this one worth roughly $6000, to a child he met only once. Marotta and his wife bumped into one of the mothers and his daughter in town one day.
It’s hard to ignore the irony here. This poor guy makes a donation (sperm) that produces a child who may receive another donation (the cash) from him soon. Freaky.
The odd thing is that Marotta supposedly had signed agreements in place when he made the initial sperm donation. They indicated that he would not be financially responsible for any child his sperm produced, but that wasn’t good enough for the state of Kansas.
According to the Kansas Department for Children and Families, these agreements don’t apply because a doctor didn’t perform the insemination. Since one of the lesbians inseminated herself, and since there is no way to prove that she and Marotta were never lovers, the state considers him to be the child’s father.
So my advice to all you guys out there is this: if you ever find yourself in Kansas, do yourself a favor and keep your sperm to yourself. It will be a whole lot cheaper, believe me.
Share it please!
Posted on January 7, 2013, in Perspectives and tagged Child support, children, commentary, Craigslist, current-events, Family, Kansas, law, news, perspectives, Sperm donation, William Marotta. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
gnostic bent 
Laws (and lawyers to make it the lowest of the low) and indescribable mothers are repulsive to me. Period.
I feel the same, Koji. Believe me…
No good deed goes unpunished. Poor guy, He’ll probably end up paying, DCFS tends to go with whatever is in the best interest of the child as long as their dealing with the actual parents. He should have been aware of all the legal ramifications before giving a little of himself to anyone… 😉
I agree completely, Marty. Not a very smart move, even though he was trying to do a good deed…
As someone from Kansas, this is an embarrassment. Arguments on various in-state news reporting sites have commenters wondering if this is homophobic behavior, asking the questions “if it was a straight couple, would the state go after the sperm donor, then?” and “Even if they went through a doctor to do it, would the state still be going after him?”
Why is the state going after the sperm donor, when in every other case they go after the absent parent? Is it because the parenting couple is lesbian?
I have a friend whose husband was “fixed” a number of years ago. She has tried sperm derived from a similar manner as the couple in this case, as well as through a sperm bank and medical professional. What would have happened had she gotten pregnant from a Craig’s List donor and then her and her husband separated and divorced. Who would the state attack then? Still the donor, or her ex husband?
The longer I live in this state, the more I’m convinced that it’s full of idiots.
I feel your pain, Jaded. We have some dum-dums around here, too. I don’t think any state is safe, to be honest, but I certainly wish you luck. Hang in there and thanks for sharing those great comments!
Jaded does make excellent points. This is one of those cases where the law hasn’t kept up with the times at least not completely. But the signed agreement should have sufficed to cover the donor in this case. However, when the Department of Children and Family Services makes their decision of where they believe the liability lies, they have generally broad powers to go after that individual and sometimes their choices are bad. They tend though to side with whats in the best interest of the child, adults be damned. I would hope that they made this seemly bizarre decision based on the lesbians couples ability to pay for the child vs what the donor could afford to pay and went with what would be in the best interest of the child and the fact that the couple were lesbians had no impact on the decision.
I hope the same thing, Marty. Great comments, as always 🙂