Sperm Donor Given Access Rights
Tags: The Supreme Court has judged that the sperm donor to a lesbian couple should have access rights to the child born from his donated sperm. The man, known as ‘A’, had agreed in 2005 that he would not assume the role of father to any child born of the arrangement, but would be a ‘favourite uncle’. He went as far as to sign an agreement ensuring that this would remain the case.
In 2006, a child was born and A changed his mind. He went to the High Court seeking guardianship and access rights and was refused. At that time the Court stated that the lesbian couple and the child were a “de facto family”.
Today, however, the Supreme Court has ruled that there is no such thing in Ireland as a de facto family. In a unanimous decision the Court upheld the High Court’s order that he not be given guardianship of the child but overruled the decision on access. So, the lesbian couple and the man in question are to sort out access rights between them.
This is a scary precedent for lesbians and gay men who have, or wish to have, children. It’s also worrying and confusing for the children involved. You would always hope that adults can sort things out in the best interests of the child, without heading off to court, but sometimes an impartial judgment is necessary.
Except we can’t, legally, get an fair judgement as we aren’t afforded the same rights as our straight counterparts. Both of these mothers obviously went in with their eyes open as they got their gay male friend to sign an agreement.
You can’t blame the man for having a change of heart, as unfair as it is to the mothers. Undoubtedly, the John Waters of the world will herald this as a bright new day, a just decision giving more rights to fathers and about time too as fathers aren’t just for Christmas and so on ad nauseum. However, this man didn’t want to be a father. He didn’t go into this hoping to have a baby, he went in hoping to help his friends.
And what about the other mother? She is actually raising the child with her partner. She has no rights here. Zero. Legally, she just happens to live with the baby’s mother.
We need legislation in this area. We need the child to be protected and all three parents’ rights to be respected. This is a family unit and should be seen as one. One of, if not the, greatest negative of the Civil Partnership Bill is that there are no adoption rights for non-biological parents. So cases like this will continue to occur.
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And there you have it from the mouth of a Supreme Court Judge (according to The Irish Times, RTÉ and Breaking News.ie) and supported by four other Supreme Court judges: “The lesbian couple and the child are not a family under the Constitution of Ireland and therefore their relationship may not be weighed as such in the balance against the father of the child. There was also no institution of a “de facto family” in Ireland and the High Court had erred in its analysis of this.” So gay people cannot form families in Ireland. And the families that do exist actually do not exist. I’m dumbfounded, furious and devastated by the audacity and ignorance of such statements. Legal spats over the definition of family and marriage do nothing to vindicate the position of the social realities faced members of these families.
This case also highlights the urgent and long-overdue need for regulation of assisted reproduction in Ireland. And there’s another decision due from the Supreme Court next week determining whether or not frozen embryos can be implanted in the egg-owner without the sperm-owner’s consent. I’m not saying the State or the courts should get involved in every family dispute or incident of assisted reproduction but there needs to be some legal framework so that when people enter these agreements, they and the other party involved know exactly what they are signing up for.