Topeka sperm donor: Child support case politically motivated
Man answered ad on Craigslist to help lesbian couple conceive
Posted December 31, 2012
By Tim Hrenchir
THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL
Sperm donor William Marotta said Monday he already has spent thousands of dollars in attorney fees fighting efforts by the state Kansas to force him to pay child support for the daughter he helped a lesbian couple conceive.
“In the long run, I think this will be a good thing, but I’m the one getting squashed,” he said. “I can’t even believe it’s gone this far at this point, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
Marotta, 46, of Topeka, spoke Monday with The Topeka Capital-Journal about the case, for which news first broke Friday on CJOnline.
His attorneys, Benoit Swinnen and Hannah Schroller, accompanied Marotta at Monday’s Capital-Journal interview, where he acknowledged being “a little scared about where this is going to go, primarily for financial reasons.”
Though his attorneys are charging him reduced rates, Marotta said he expects the legal fees to eventually be more than he can afford.
“I’ve already paid more than 10 percent of my yearly salary, and I don’t know many folks who are willing to give up more than 10 percent of their yearly income,” he said.
A Topekan since 2005, Marotta said he predominantly has been a mechanic but is currently working in a different field. He has no biological children but has cared for foster children with his wife, Kimberly.
Marotta recalled Monday how he donated sperm in March 2009 to a Topeka lesbian couple after responding to an ad they had placed on Craigslist. Marotta and the women, Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, signed an agreement relinquishing all parental rights and responsibilities regarding the child, a daughter Schreiner bore after being artificially inseminated.
The Kansas Department for Children and Families is now trying to have Marotta declared the 3-year-old girl’s father and forced to pay child support. The state contends the agreement is moot because those involved failed to meet the requirement of Kansas statute 23-2208(f) that Schreiner have a licensed physician perform the artificial insemination.
A hearing on a motion by Marotta’s attorneys to dismiss the case will be Jan. 8 in Shawnee County District Court.
At the time Marotta made the sperm donation, Bauer and Schreiner had been together for eight years and already had adopted several other children. Schreiner stayed home with the children while Bauer worked. The couple split in December 2010, but continue to co-parent their eight children, who range in age from 3 months to 25 years.
Bauer was diagnosed this past March with what she only would describe as “a significant illness” that prevents her from working. Schreiner then went to the state to obtain health insurance for their daughter. The DCF demanded Schreiner provide the sperm donor’s name, claiming if she didn’t it would deny any health benefits because she was withholding information.
Marotta said Monday he doesn’t resent Schreiner’s having given the DCF his name.
“I resent the fact that Jennifer was pressured into doing that in the first place,” he said. “That was wrong — wrong by the state.”
Angela de Rocha, spokeswoman for the DCF, said Monday the department is proceeding with the case the way state law requires.
She said: “Speaking generally, all individuals who apply for taxpayer-funded benefits through DCF are asked to cooperate with child support enforcement efforts. If a sperm donor makes his ‘contribution’ through a licensed physician and a child is conceived, the donor is held harmless under state statue. In cases where the parties do not go through a physician or a clinic, there remains the question of who actually is the father of a child or children. DCF is required by statute to establish paternity and then pursue child support from the noncustodial parent.”
When asked Monday if he thought politics played a role in the state’s pursuing the case against him, Marotta responded, “Absolutely.”
He said: “It’s my understanding that (Bauer) told the department of child services right off the bat, ‘I will be financially responsible for this’ and they in essence told her, ‘No, get lost. You’re not part of this.’ And when somebody’s willing to say ‘Hold it a minute, I’m the one who’s responsible for this’ and another agency says ‘No, get lost,’ whether it’s bureaucratic politics or something more than that — it’s a Republican state, yeah, I think it’s politics.”
Marotta said the case had convinced some men not to become sperm donors.
“I don’t even have to guess at that,” he said. “Look at some of the comments with the story online. People have already said ‘No.’ ”
Marotta said the degree of national media attention the case has drawn didn’t surprise him because it combines the social issues of same-sex couples, adoptions and sperm donor rights “all wrapped into one.”
He said those are “issues that to me, being left of center, are something that I am kind of involved with and interested in.”
Swinnen said he considered in unlikely the case would be resolved Jan. 8.
He said that if administrative hearing officer Lori Yockers chooses not to dismiss the case that day, it would go into the discovery phase, and his office would then file a motion seeking summary judgment in Marotta’s favor.
After the couple filed for assistance earlier this year, the state welfare agency demanded they provide the donor’s name so it could collect child support. The state has that authority, court documents state, because the insemination wasn’t performed by a licensed physician, thus making the contract void.
Without the donor’s name, the department told the women, it wouldn’t provide health benefits to their now 3-year-old girl — something Bauer no longer can provide because a diagnosis has left her incapable of working and in and out of rehabilitation since March.
“This was a wonderful opportunity with a guy with an admirable, giving character who wanted nothing more than to help us have a child,” she said. “I feel like the state of Kansas has made a mess out of the situation.”
Bauer, who has sent Marotta updates on the 3-year-old girl, reached out to him Saturday but hadn’t heard back as of 7 p.m. Topeka Capital-Journal attempts to reach him also were unsuccessful.
At the time Bauer and Schreiner placed the ad, they had been together for eight years and already had adopted several other children. The couple split in December 2010, but continue to co-parent their eight children, who range in age from 3 months to 25 years.
In 2009, the pair also were financially stable, allowing Schreiner to stay home with the children while Bauer worked.
That all changed this past March, when Bauer was diagnosed with what she only would describe as “a significant illness” that prevents her from working.
Without an alternative, Schreiner went to the state to obtain health insurance for their daughter. The department demanded that Schreiner provide the sperm donor’s name, claiming if she didn’t it would deny any health benefits because she was withholding information. Bauer described her conversations with the state as “threatening.”
“One gentleman told me he wasn’t going to discuss anything with me because I’m not the parent or legal guardian,” Bauer said. “Therefore, I had no existence.”
On paper, that is true. The 3-year-old’s birth certificate lists no father, she said, naming only Schreiner as the mother.
It is the same for the rest of their children, Bauer said. Because the state of Kansas doesn’t recognize same-sex unions, the couple had to file each adoption as a single parent.
That law also prevents the state from collecting child support from same-sex partners, despite the fact that Bauer volunteered to assume financial responsibility for her daughter.
To collect child support from her would mean recognizing Bauer as a parent — opening the doors, she said, to increased legal rights for gays and lesbian parents.
Bauer couldn’t say whether the state’s lawsuit against Marotta was simply bureaucratic or had a political slant to it, but either way, she said, it has bigger implications outside of her situation.
“More and more gays and lesbians are adopting and reproducing, and this, to me, is a step backward,” Bauer said. “I think a lot of progressive movement is happening currently in the world as far as gays and lesbians go. Maybe this is Kansas’ stand against some of that.”
Regardless of what happens, Bauer said, she will forever be grateful to Marotta and his wife, and what their donation meant to her family.
“There are not enough words to describe what I feel for William (Marotta) as a person," she said, "because he gave us and allowed us to have this gift.”