A woman has lost a court of appeal challenge over her name being removed from a childās birth certificate after her ex-wife admitted she secretly had sex with their sperm donor.
The āunprecedentedā and āunusualā case centred on the question of who were the legal parents of a girl, now aged six.
The child, referred to as X, was born amid an āinformal conception arrangementā between two women and a man they met through an online advert, judges were told.
The couple, referred to as P and Q, met the man, F, for the first time in a pub in late 2016, hoping to find a sperm donor to impregnate P.
The women āformed a favourable impression of himā and the three of them then signed a sperm donor agreement, agreeing to use artificial insemination.
When two artificial attempts failed, the court heard how P contacted F for support and the pair had sex. P had been āvery upset and depressedā about the lack of success and arranged to meet him at her parentsā house while they were abroad. She found him āfriendly and sympatheticā and initiated the intercourse, a court was told.
P and F had sex three times at her parentsā house, unknown to Q, with the third time coinciding with a third artificial insemination attempt. Judges said it was āimpossible to know which method of insemination led to [the childās] conceptionā.
P and Q later divorced and, amid disagreement over the care of the child, P revealed the truth about her encounter with their donor, and secured a court declaration earlier this year that F was the childās legal parent.
In her ruling in April, Mrs Justice Knowles said the case was āa cautionary tale about the consequences for a child and for a same-sex couple of both deceit as to how that child came to be conceived and the unreliability of informal arrangements for artificial inseminationā. She added: āThe fallout from this coupleās separation has been devastating for each of them and for their named sperm donor.ā
She concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, while Q had not consented to sex between P and F, the method of the childās conception was āunclearā.
This is sad. The method of insemination shouldnāt matter here. Q has been that childās mother for 6 years. Sheās the mum.
For anyone interested I do recommend clicking through to the article, because the posted text here is only about half the article. However, the final paragraph is a positive one.
[The judge] said that after a separate welfare hearing a judge had given all three adults parental responsibility for the child.
I couldnāt agree more
Ya P sounds like an asshole for doing that, is there even any proof other than her saying thatās what happened? Text messages arranging the meeting? Anything? Otherwise I donāt see how something can be changed without proof.
Itās all based on archaic parentage laws where itās determined by genetics, not effort, care and intent. Likely wonāt change anytime soon because of all the anti-lgbtq+ people in power not wanting to change a law that favours ātraditionalā family structures and makes it extremely difficult for any other pairing of people to raise a child without fear of something like this happening.
is there even any proof other than her saying thatās what happened
None that weāve seen in the article, but that doesnāt mean the case didnāt address it. I strongly suspect either there was never any reason to contest that issue, or it was debated and the court found that yes, it did happen as P described.
That cautionary tale is extremely specific. But I will be sure to not cheat on my partner with my sperm donor while getting artificially inseminated.
Now you know! And knowing is half the battle!
