Sperm donor ordered to pay lesbian couple
A British firefighter who donated his sperm so a lesbian couple could have two babies is being forced to pay thousands of pounds in child support.
Andy Bathie, 37, initially agreed to help Sharon and Terri Arnold after being assured he would not have to be involved in the upbringing of their young boy and girl or have any financial responsibility towards them.
But the British government's Child Support Agency has begun docking his pay to force him to contribute to the children's upbringing because the lesbian couple have split up.
Mr Bathie has launched unprecedented court action in an attempt to ensure he cannot be recognised as a legal parent to the children.
"These women wanted to be parents and take on all the responsibilities that brings," he told the Evening Standard newspaper.
"I would never have agreed to this unless they had been living as a committed family.
"And now I can't afford to have children with my own wife - it's crippling me financially."
I'm sorry, but I just think this is SO wrong. The last line is awful. I beleive in the "rights of the child" and everything, but this appears to be more of a case, of "let's take him for all he's worth for helping us". I actually have a friend who was dating a guy, they'd been seeing each other for 12 months or so when he got a letter in the mail that he owed child support to a woman he'd had a one night stand with (admittedly not good in itself). This woman admitted she'd slept with him purely to conceive a child because she wanted one. The child was now twelve months old and she'd realised she couldn't afford it, so NOW she wanted child support. I fully support "you do the crime you do the time" and that men have just as much responsibility to ensure contraception happens, but this was cold. Their relationship unfortunately didn't cope through this ordeal as he had more of his wages garnished to cover the backpay, so I don't know how he's doing with it.
2 kindred spirits ~ This bugs them too!:
SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO WRONG!!!
If there are/were two of them, surely the 'two parents' thing should be covered, one of the PARENTS ie the lesbians pays the child support to the one who is doing the raising!! Where is that part? Not, well he's a man and has a biological link to the baby whereas I (nonbiological lesbian mum) can get off scot free as there's nothing to tie me to it! Like being a man, only so so so much worse.
Go firefighter. I hope he wins and gets damages!
Exactly right. There was a comment in the paper today from a woman who had a child with a sperm donor - a friend of theirs - as she and her husband couldn't conceive naturally. And she asked, if she and her husband should ever separate, who would be expected to pay child support? The actual biological sperm donor father, or her husband who has raised the child and considers it his? Legislators need to pull their finger(s) out and accept that not every family unit is a mother, father and 2.5 children, and things need to change to support all parties in the event of a relationship breakdown. Grr!
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