You may want to think twice before you let pecuniary instigations or your whimsical bent persuade you to donate your fertile sperm in Kansas. In a story I ran into on cnn.com, I learnt that a man, William Marotta of Topeka, Kansas, is now ruing the imprudence of his haste to come to the rescue of two lesbians who were in need of a sperm donor to help fertilize their eggs. In what Mr. Marotta will now possibly class a Class A misfortune, his life-begetting juice was productive enough to crack an egg.
A good story all round, then, shouldn’t it be?
Not if you were Marotta would you think so!
Now, almost four years later, Mr. Marotta is just learning from officials of Kansas State that his little philanthropic indulgence comes at a cost. Apparently, the two women lovers separated; and, one of them [whose cracked egg released a young female life (now three)] chose to get on the neck of the State of Kansas for welfare assistance. Naturally, the State’s officials wondered what contribution the father of the woman’s daughter was making to the upkeep of the girl. Understanding that he hasn’t
been doing much, the State is now vigorously pursuing him to provide child support for his unintended offspring.
The story gave me a good laugh, I must confess. Marotta has no way of convincing the State that he donated his sperm to a couple (Kansas does not recognize same-sex sexual affiliations); he has no way of insisting that he donated – donated! – the sperm and should therefore be free of subsequent obligations because, you see, Mr. Marotta’s donation was not artificially inseminated by a doctor! And that’s a mistake you don’t want to make in a state like Kansas.
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