Fertility organisations trying to clarify new sperm donor court ruling

Natalie gamble Associates (NGA) has been contacted by UK patient organisations trying to clarify the implications of the High Court’s ruling, which has allowed two sperm donors to argue in court that they should have rights of contact with their biological children. NGA has been representing the lesbian mothers in this case. The ruling received a lot of press attention yesterday (including on the front page of the Daily Mail, and in the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent and BBC). Natalie spoke to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the British Fertility Society, the National Gamete Donation Trust and the Donor Conception Network – all seeking further information about what to say to patients, donors and donor conceived families who were contacting them. The HFEA and the BFS have issued press statements in response to the ruling. We thought it would be helpful to provide a clear summary of what the ruling means for these organisations and others concerned about this: - The ruling only gave the two donors the right to argue their case in court. It is not yet know whether they will be given any rights of contact with the children. - The reason for the decision was very fact specific, a result of the fact that the donors were known to the lesbian mothers and had contact with the children in their early months before relationships broke down. The court was satisfied, on the facts, that the donors had sufficient connection with the children to at least justify their cases being heard in court. - The ruling is therefore exceptionally unlikely to apply to donors who have had no contact with the child – for example unknown donors through licensed clinics. - However, the ruling could apply to other types of known donors, including known sperm or egg donors who have donated through a licensed clinic, if they can demonstrate sufficient connection with the child in practice. Although in this case conception took place outside a licensed clinic, the law which provided that these men were ‘not to be treated as the father for any purpose’ is the same law which excludes the status of other types of egg and sperm donors. - The ruling does not in any way affect donors’ responsibilities – it does not make it possible to hold a donor legally or financially responsible for a child they help conceive. Article: 3rd February 2013 www.nataliegambleassociates.co.uk

Sperm donor legal rights in Australia

PARENTING plans developed before a child is born should not be legally enforceable and sperm donors should not have an automatic legal right to be on a birth certificate, the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby says.
''The paramount consideration when providing parentage/parenting orders is to protect the best interests of the child, not the expectations or interests of parents,'' a senior policy adviser at the group, Senthorun Raj, said.

''[However], there needs to be greater consideration on whether it is appropriate to broaden the scope of parenting plans, to permit greater recognition of donor fathers who wish to have an ongoing parenting role.''

His comments come after the Herald revealed yesterday the first case in NSW in which a lesbian former partner of a woman is taking the Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages and a sperm donor to court to force the removal of his name from a child's birth certificate despite him seeing the child fortnightly for the past nine years.

The case, before the NSW District Court today, highlights the inadequacy of laws dealing with multi-parent families.

Five years ago, the NSW Law Reform Commission recommended that the legal status of known sperm donors be reviewed to help stop court battles over access to children after they are born.

Sperm donors do not have automatic legal parenting status. In 2008 that right was given to the partners of lesbian mothers who conceived using a sperm donor.

The commission's 2006 recommendation said policymakers should consider whether to enable same-sex families to register parenting plans, the recognition of multiple legal parents and whether to enable donors to be named on a birth certificate, without attaching legal parental status to that act.

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