(This is one of those examples of contracts, right? Where they outline what happens in all the cases you never think will happen? And there should've been one covering the guy's parental non-involvement?)
Even if there was a contract, it's not actually relevant, because UK law doesn't allow a parent to give up rights that way or avoid paying child support to the single parent of the child.
Given the specific circumstances as relayed in that article, a flaw that should probably have been addressed prior to impregnation.
Given the taking paternity leave, caring for the kid, general involvement, and other acting-in-a-parental-role behaviour described in the article dug up by publius1, below, not so much.
(I still think that if you want to donate sperm to someone who's trying to get pregnant and walk away, then yeah, there should be a way to waive/secede parental rights.)
I still think that if you want to donate sperm to someone who's trying to get pregnant and walk away, then yeah, there should be a way to waive/secede parental rights.
Yeah...except how do you make it stick? What if someone donates, and then, five or ten years later, wants to get involved? I mean, it's still his kid. Are parental rights the type of thing you can take on and give up multiple times?
Or what about the other way around? Someone raises a kid, then decides to waive parental rights down the road? And why? I mean, barring the points publius1 made (which make this specific case a bad example, granted, but let's focus on the abstract), yes, a donor who wanted nothing to do with the kid shouldn't be held liable...but what's to define "nothing to do"? It sounds like a new divorce tactic: "If I have to pay child support I want visitation. But I'm willing to just waive all rights and responsibilities..."
It'd be still his kid if he donated to a sperm bank and then bribed an employee to go through the records and find out who had his kid a decade later, but I for one would be completely disinclined to start granting rights at that point.
And in general, I'd say waiving rights after you've already entered into the *social* role of parent (rather than the biological one) doesn't cut it.
(Which is not the be-all and end-all---that is to say, if you voluntarily and with informed consent engaged in the act that produced the child, I'd count you responsible for raising that child. (And no, I do not count donating to a sperm bank as being an act which produces a child. Sperm can sit there and never get used.) But again, that's a matter of social congress as well as physical congress.)
waiving rights after you've already entered into the *social* role of parent (rather than the biological one) doesn't cut it.
(Which is not the be-all and end-all---that is to say, if you voluntarily and with informed consent engaged in the act that produced the child, I'd count you responsible for raising that child.
What's their definition of parent? I mean, I don't expect that they'd start going after a sperm bank donor, even if the mother, say, bribed a sperm bank employee to find out who the anonymous donor was. So it's not strictly biological.
And I'm not seeing any indication of the mother's partner being hit up for support, so I don't think it's *strictly* social. Although that could be a case of it being a lesbian relationship. If she'd been married to an infertile man, and they'd been raising the kids together, I could see Child Services going after her ex-husband for child support, rather than the child's father.
However: what is very, very wrong with that report? No apparent attempt was made to get the response from the BCPS. Even if "No comment", that would show that the reporter at least TRIED. This way, it looks like an awfully one-sided article.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:05 pm (UTC)(This is one of those examples of contracts, right? Where they outline what happens in all the cases you never think will happen? And there should've been one covering the guy's parental non-involvement?)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:43 pm (UTC)Given the taking paternity leave, caring for the kid, general involvement, and other acting-in-a-parental-role behaviour described in the article dug up by
(I still think that if you want to donate sperm to someone who's trying to get pregnant and walk away, then yeah, there should be a way to waive/secede parental rights.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 09:04 pm (UTC)Yeah...except how do you make it stick? What if someone donates, and then, five or ten years later, wants to get involved? I mean, it's still his kid. Are parental rights the type of thing you can take on and give up multiple times?
Or what about the other way around? Someone raises a kid, then decides to waive parental rights down the road? And why? I mean, barring the points
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 09:13 pm (UTC)And in general, I'd say waiving rights after you've already entered into the *social* role of parent (rather than the biological one) doesn't cut it.
(Which is not the be-all and end-all---that is to say, if you voluntarily and with informed consent engaged in the act that produced the child, I'd count you responsible for raising that child. (And no, I do not count donating to a sperm bank as being an act which produces a child. Sperm can sit there and never get used.) But again, that's a matter of social congress as well as physical congress.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 09:17 pm (UTC)(Which is not the be-all and end-all---that is to say, if you voluntarily and with informed consent engaged in the act that produced the child, I'd count you responsible for raising that child.
Huh. I like that.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 09:19 pm (UTC)And I'm not seeing any indication of the mother's partner being hit up for support, so I don't think it's *strictly* social. Although that could be a case of it being a lesbian relationship. If she'd been married to an infertile man, and they'd been raising the kids together, I could see Child Services going after her ex-husband for child support, rather than the child's father.
Hrgh. I'll dig it up. Just rambling.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:10 pm (UTC)You wants the rights, you gets the responsibilities, damnit.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:14 pm (UTC)Nothing's simple.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 09:06 pm (UTC)Well, some things are, but this one isn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-06 12:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 08:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-05 10:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-06 12:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-06 12:31 am (UTC)