“The precedent-setting court ruling that the agreement is not enforceable could open the door for a child to have three or four recognized parents in "known donor" situations.” *
Talk about confusing children….
Court Backs Parental Rights of Known Sperm Donor
Shannon Kari
National Post
For the first time in Canada a court has ruled on the legitimacy of a donor contract in determining the competing parental rights of a lesbian couple and a gay man who was the sperm donor.
The precedent-setting court ruling that the agreement is not enforceable could open the door for a child to have three or four recognized parents in "known donor" situations.
At the same time, it may also have a chilling effect on lesbian couples seeking a specific donor and who want their child to know the identity of the father.
The legal dispute involves a lesbian couple in Toronto and a gay man who agreed to be their sperm donor and play an active role as a parent. (The parties cannot be identified because there is a ban on any information that could identify the child.)
The couple and the man signed a "donor contract" before the child was born in 2002, which set out his rights as a "co-parent" including regular access as well as full custody if both women were to die. The agreement included a promise to try for a "three-way" adoption, which would have required a court challenge under the Charter of Rights, although this was never followed through.
The two women and the man are all highly educated professionals and the couple wanted the child to know her father and intentionally sought out a gay man as the donor.
"Given their options to have children, what we were offering might be interesting to [gay men], might be attractive to them, I mean their options are in some ways much bleaker than ours," one of the women told the court.
The friendship has deteriorated and the two women have tried to reduce the father's access to the child.
*Note: This could also be the case when a woman adopts lesbianism after a particularly traumatic divorce, resulting in a child having two mommies and a daddy and a step-mommy. Or, vice versa, two daddies and a mommy and a step-daddy. Or, let’s consider if both parents in a marriage decided to become homosexual (because, you know, society says it’s “okay”) causing a one man, one woman marriage to become two mommies and two daddies for baby Peter. My goodness. How can one possibly think any of these options are healthy for kids? Let’s strive to perfect marriage not by adding more factors to the equation, but by perfecting the equation that already exists. Let’s keep marriage between one man and one woman and let’s make divorce harder and provide more counseling services to struggling couples!
~Pearl
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3 comments:
This child is the victim of the parents all putting their own wants above the needs of the child. They must really love their child to do that to her.
I think it was Dr. Laura who said there's only one good reason to have a child -- for the child's sake! It's not about adults who want to be "fulfilled" or have someone who "has to love me". I think these "parents" seem to have forgotten this.
And a 3-way adoption? They said the father was gay, and also with a partner. What does that make his partner to a child? This whole situation is not good for that child.
Whatever happened to the liberal watch cry: "Think of the children!" I guess that one's gone down the garbage, like the rest of liberal "values."
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