Court case query: Is Topeka man a sperm donor or father?
State of Kansas wants sperm donor found on Craigslist to pay for daughter born to lesbian couple
Posted: December 28, 2012
By Tim Hrenchir
THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL
Topekan William Marotta sought only to become a sperm donor — but now the state of Kansas is trying to have him declared a father.
Nearly four years ago, Marotta donated sperm in a plastic cup to a lesbian couple after responding to an ad they had placed on Craigslist.
Marotta and the women, Topekans Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, signed an agreement holding him harmless for support of the child, a daughter Schreiner bore after being artificially inseminated.
But 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 case is scheduled for a Jan. 8 hearing in Shawnee County District Court.
Hannah Schroller, the attorney defending Marotta, said the case has intriguing social and reproductive rights implications.
She said Marotta, a mechanic who has taken care of foster children with his wife, Kimberly, answered a Craigslist ad placed by Bauer and Schreiner seeking a sperm donor in March 2009.
In an email to Marotta that is part of court records, Bauer described herself and Schreiner as a “financially stable lesbian couple,” with Bauer working outside the home and Schreiner being a stay-at-home mom with their other children.
“We are foster and adoptive parents and now we desire to share a pregnancy and birth together,” Bauer wrote.
Marotta responded in an email that he was 43 years old, 6 feet 1 inches tall and weighed 205 pounds, reasonably fit and in good health, with blond hair and blue eyes.
Marotta, Bauer and Schreiner each signed an agreement saying he would be paid $50 per semen donation, with the arrangement including a clear understanding that he would have no parental rights whatsoever with the child or children.
The agreement also called for Bauer and Schreiner to hold Marotta harmless “for any child support payments demanded of him by any other person or entity, public or private, including any district attorney’s office or other state or county agency, regardless of the circumstances or said demand.”
Schroller said that after consulting with his wife, Marotta decided to donate free of charge rather than taking the $50.
She said Marotta subsequently received periodic email updates on the child after her birth but hasn’t had much contact with Schreiner and Bauer. The Topeka Capital-Journal was unable to reach the women Friday.
On Oct. 3, attorney Mark McMillan filed a petition on behalf of the Department of Children and Families seeking a ruling that Marotta is the father of Schreiner’s child and owes a duty to support her. It said the department provided cash assistance totaling $189 for the girl for July through September 2012 and had paid medical expenses totaling $5,884.96.
Schroller, an attorney with Topeka-based Swinnen & Associates, said the state became involved after the mother fell on hard times and applied for financial assistance through the state.
She said of Schreiner: “My understanding is that after being pressed on paternity of the child, she gave them William’s name as a sperm donor. The state then filed this suit to determine paternity.”
Angela de Rocha, spokeswoman for the Department for Children and Families, said Friday that Kansas law prevented her from commenting on the case.
On Oct. 24, Schroller filed a motion to dismiss the case.
McMillan responded in a motion filed Nov. 1 that the hold harmless agreement between Marotta, Bauer and Schreiner was moot because it didn’t meet the primary requirement of Kansas statute 23-2208(f) that Schreiner have a licensed physician perform the artificial insemination.
Marotta signed an affidavit in September saying he had no reason to believe a medical professional wouldn’t carry out the artificial insemination using the semen specimen he provided.
Schroller replied in a court document filed Dec. 20 that her case was consistent with “In Re K.M.H.,” a 2007 case in which the Kansas Supreme Court denied parental rights to a man who sought them after providing a sperm donation under similar circumstances. A licensed physician performed the insemination in the 2007 case, in which the donor was Topekan Daryl Hendrix, but no physicians apparently were involved in Marotta’s case.
Still, Schroller wrote that Marotta took the same actions as the man in the 2007 case did, and he — like that man — should be considered a sperm donor, not a father.
She stressed that sperm banks regularly ship sperm donations for the intended purpose of artificial insemination within the United States and abroad to both residential and medical facility addresses.
Schroller wrote: “If, as the petitioner alleges, the use of a licensed physician is a primary requirement of K.S.A. 23-2208(f), then any woman in Kansas could have sperm donations shipped to her house, inseminate herself without a licensed physician and seek out the donor for financial support because her actions made him a father, not a sperm donor. This goes against the very purpose of the statute to protect sperm donors as well as birth mothers.”