Three Stories on Mass. Woman's Lawsuit Attempting to Find Identity of Sperm Donor

all from the Boston Herald:

"Jane Doe Spells Out Daddy Issues":

In an exclusive, emotional statement to the Herald, the desperate mother of twins suing to learn the identity and medical history of the sperm donor who fathered her children claims her daughters have “potentially fatal health issues” and deserve to know their dad.

“I would like the Massachusetts court to recognize that donor-conceived children are as much real people with the same fundamental needs as any other children, and that their interests should be regarded as just as important,” the woman called Jane Doe said in the statement.

Doe, who said she is single and 35, became pregnant with the twins in 2000 after she was artificially inseminated with the sperm of an anonymous medical student dubbed D237, which was sold to the New England Cryogenic Center in Newton in the early 1990s.

In her painfully candid statement, Doe claims:

NECC “explicitly assured” her the twins would be able to have contact with their donor daddy - a prerequisite she insisted upon in her search for a sperm bank - and that she sent D237 letters about and pictures of the girls through NECC.

She spent “thousands of dollars” on “triple the amount” of D237’s sperm she planned to buy in exchange for his future relationship with the children.

In order to confront “the depression that was overwhelming me,” she briefly surrendered the twins to the state to be placed with a foster family capable of addressing their medical needs.

“I also took on this litigation to fight for the rights of other donated children, because I don’t think it right that any person should be forbidden from knowing their fathers’ identities or family health information,” she explained. ...

Scott Brown, spokesman for California Cryobank, a sperm bank with offices in Cambridge, said, “My confident assumption is (Doe) will not prevail. You can’t compel somebody to make their medical records public. It’s against the law.”

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"Threat to Anonymity":

Massachusetts does not have any laws defining what a sperm donor’s relationship,
moral obligation or potential financial responsibility is to his future non-household offspring. The absence of any laws on the subject has rattled even the state Appeals Court.

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"Jane Doe's Full Statement."

Labels: donor conception, Massachusetts

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:10 PM VOTE

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