A man who offered to be a sperm donor for a lesbian couple with the condition that he would remain part of the child’s life has won a custody battle. One of the women wanted sole custody, intending to sever the child’s relationship with his biological father.
According to the Daily Mail and the Herald Sun, the years-long custody battle concluded with the biological father winning shared custody after a ruling from the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. None of the people involved have been identified.
The father had agreed to be a sperm donor for the couple, and one of the women used donor eggs to conceive the child, and then carried the baby. He said part of their collective agreement was that he would be involved in the child’s life, and so far, that has taken place. He met his son at birth and spent time with him regularly, including for overnight visits. The boy calls him “Daddy,” though the birth mother did not place his name on the birth certificate.
While the arrangement seemed to work for a time, when the two women broke up, a five-year custody battle ensued. During those years, the boy spent time with both women and his father. The birth mother tried to gain sole custody of the boy, and claimed the father had waived all parental rights. The other woman, meanwhile, said that she and the father shared responsibility as well.
READ: Couple plans to deny son the ‘complicated’ truth about sperm donor’s identity
The boy, now nine, had his own legal representation, who recommended shared responsibility among all three adults, or sole custody given to the father. The judge said the best custody arrangement was one that was least likely to subject the boy to further court proceedings, so custody was awarded to the father and the birth mother’s former partner.
“To characterise (the sperm donor) as a sperm donor and not a person concerned with (the boy’s) care, welfare and development would be to ignore many of the facts and circumstances of this case which lead to the conclusion that (the sperm donor) is indeed in practical terms a parent of (the boy) within the ordinary meaning of the word,” the trial judge wrote. “The evidence unequivocally supports that (the sperm donor) has provided support and care to (the boy) since the time of his birth and will continue doing so. (The mothers) do not enjoy any superiority over any other person keenly interested in (the boy’s) welfare, namely (the sperm donor).”
The birth mother said she had hoped to appeal, but was told it would likely be unsuccessful.
A study conducted by Harvard Medical School found that 62% of children conceived through donor technologies believe it to be unethical and immoral, saying they feel like business transactions. As one woman told Them Before Us, “Somehow, somewhere, my parents developed the idea that they deserved to have a baby, and it didn’t matter how much it cost, how many times it took, or how many died in the process. They deserved a child. And with an attitude like that, by the time I was born they thought they deserved to have the perfect child… as Dad defined a perfect child. And since they deserved a child, I was their property to be controlled, not a person or a gift to be treasured.”
