Email us with any useful information relating to the legal issues surrounding private sperm donation,
donor conception, in your country - thank you

We found this useful quote, and although Free Sperm Donations Worldwide attempt to offer an alternative solution to becoming pregnant-
ie message boards for people looking for sperm donors to meet with private sperm donors, and make their own arrangements- we do urge you to take
note of this useful advice.

HFEA Chair, Suzi Leather says:

“The HFEA cannot guarantee good laboratory practices and safe testing of donated sperm from unlicensed donation services. We would strongly advise women using donated sperm to ensure it has been adequately screened to standards recommended in professional guidelines. Women wishing to use donated sperm are advised to do so through an HFEA licensed clinic where donated sperm is thoroughly tested and legal parentage is set down in law.”

Proper screening requires sperm to be frozen and quarantined in a licensed storage facility before it can be used for treatment. This quarantine process requires a licence from the HFEA, therefore sperm from unlicensed services cannot have been quarantined and properly screened. Current HFEA guidelines recommend that donated sperm should be quarantined for at least 180 days in order to detect infections such as HIV.

Source

Sperm donor pays maintenance to lesbians

A sperm donor who helped a lesbian couple have two children is now being forced to pay thousands of pounds for their upbringing, he said. Telegraph health Andy Bathie, 37, agreed to assist Sharon and Terri Arnold - who were united in a religious blessing ceremony - after they assured him he would have no involvement in raising the boy and girl.   Andy Bathie: Legal challenge But after the couple split up he was tracked down by the Child Support Agency and forced to make regular maintenance payments. Mr Bathie, a fireman from Enfield, north London, said the financial burden was preventing him from starting his own family. "These women wanted to be parents and take on all the responsibilities that brings. I would never have agreed to this unless they had been living as a committed family. And now I can't afford to have children with my own wife - it's crippling me financially," he said. He is now bringing a legal challenge to remove his responsibilities as a parent to the two children in a case believed to be the first of its kind. Mr Bathie, who pays £450 a month in maintenance, cannot afford to employ a solicitor or barrister to take up his case but will approach his local MP, Joan Ryan, in the hope she can highlight his plight in the Commons. He is seeking a retrospective change in the law that would place paternal responsibility on Sharon Arnold, who was the non-biological mother in the lesbian relationship. Mr Bathie was approached by the couple five years ago after they had unsuccessfully asked other male friends, but no formal legal arrangement was put in place. Last November he was astonished to be contacted by the CSA, who demanded payments and ordered him to take a £400 paternity test to prove he was the father. He has only met his offspring on a couple of occasions. "When they (Terri and Sharon) first approached me I did look into the legal side and understood that as a couple they would be the parents, not me. I was never 'Daddy'," he told a newspaper. "The only reason these children are here is because they wanted children as a couple which means they should take responsibility. The CSA admit that mine is an unusual case - this is double standards and I'm having money stolen by the Government." At the time of the donation, Mr Bathie was in a relationship with a woman who had been sterilised and was not planning to have children. He has since married another woman. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said that private sperm donors are liable financially unless they donate through a licensed clinic. "We would warn men providing genetic material that the only time they are not the father is when they donate through a licensed fertility clinic. This does not apply to unlicensed websites or home insemination," said a spokesman. Natalie Gamble, a fertility law expert at Lester Aldridge who advised Mr Bathie recently, said the non-biological mother in the lesbian relationship currently had no legal responsibility for the children's upbringing. "At the moment she has no responsibility at all, which seems rather unfair. She ought to have some responsibility towards the children she has helped bring into the world," she said. The Government is seeking to reform the legislation to give equal parenting rights to same-sex couples who form civil partnerships. Had it been in place when Mr Bathie donated sperm it would have meant his right as a father would have passed to the non-biological mother. Mrs Gamble said the law was becoming obsolete as a result of changes to the family structure. "Lots of women and same-sex couples are having children through home insemination, because its cheaper, or they want somebody to have involvement in the child's upbringing or because they want to know who the father is. "But the law is struggling to keep up with these modern scenarios. Until things go wrong it's difficult to say how the law applies." She urged would-be parents and donors to ensure they have an agreement in place so all parties are aware of their rights and responsibilities. Sharon and Terri Arnold could not be contacted for comment. Source

And this was the other side of the story! - December 4 2007

Why fireman sperm donor MUST pay to raise our children,
by lesbian mother

The lesbian mother of two children conceived with a friend's sperm yesterday denied it is unfair to make him pay for their upbringing.

Terri Arnold, 25, had a boy and a girl after fireman Andy Bathie agreed to take part in a home insemination.

Bathie now has to pay £450 a month toward bringing up the two children produced using his sperm.

He insisted he was only a donor and did not want take an active role in raising the youngsters.

But the mother has hit back, claiming the 37-year-old changed his mind and regularly saw his four-year-old daughter.

Terri Arnold, from Clacton, Essex, said Mr Bathie would take the girl to stay with him overnight and even took paternity leave to care for her.

She said: "At first the idea was that he wasn't going to have anything to do with the children. He said he was going to draw up a contract saying he had no responsibility for the children and that he would be Uncle Andy.

"He was Uncle Andy but after the christening he said he didn't want to be the uncle - he wanted to be the daddy. He was seeing her roughly once a month - she would stay over at his house.”

The mother of two became pregnant after a DIY artificial insemination. She said Mr Bathie originally wanted nothing to do with his daughter, who is now four, but started seeing her regularly after her christening when she was five months.

Ms Arnold said: "We were going to go to a clinic (to arrange a sperm donor), we approached our GP about it, but then Andy offered. He said it was probably his only chance to be a father. Andy was a friend of my partner and we trusted him.

Scroll down for more...

 

"We've got photographs of our little girl at his home, we've got a box full of birthday and Christmas cards from him saying 'from daddy'. He bought her a silver trinket box and engraved it 'daddy'. He had been seeing her for two years, she became very attached to him.”

Ms Arnold said Mr Bathie helped pay for his daughter's pram and shoes and regularly bought her presents.

Two years after her birth Mr Bathie became the couple's sperm donor for a second time and Ms Arnold gave birth to a boy. He suffers from a serious digestive problem, which is being treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Mrs Arnold, 25, said: "When we had the second child, we had a long discussion about it and we agreed he was going to have the same responsibility and he said, 'Fine, I'd love to have another one'. He went into it with his eyes wide open.”

Mrs Arnold gave birth to the second baby, a boy, at Colchester Hospital in Essex, in October 2005. She claims Mr Bathie asked to be present and even took paternity leave from the fire service to look after the elder child.

Mrs Arnold, who has since split from her partner, said that shortly after the birth of the boy, now two, Mr Bathie stopped seeing his children.

She said the fireman is not named as the children's father on their birth certificates but claims she was forced to give his name to the Child Support Agency (CSA) when they threatened to cut her income support.

Ms Arnold also stresses that she would be pursuing the case even if she and her partner were still together.

She said: "At the end of the day, he walked away. He knew full well. It is not like the CSA contacted him out of the blue.

"My son was diagnosed with a disability after he was born. He was still seeing my daughter on a regular basis. I couldn't return to work because of my son being in hospital so much.

"I was then informed by the CSA that if I did not give the father's details then my income support would be cut down, and I wouldn't be able to afford to live.

"How can be turn his back on his disabled son?”

She added: "He's portrayed me as just being after his money but I'm not. I don't care about his money - I just care about my kids, his kids.

"You can't play at being a dad for two years and then just leave. Our little girl kept asking when she was going to see her daddy again - what can you say to a child?

"The money is not for me, it's for their food, clothes and shoes. This is about a principle and I'll fight all the way. He wanted to be a father but he doesn't want the financial responsibility.”

Mr Bathie, from Enfield, has launched a legal challenge, thought to be the first of its kind, so that he is not recognised as a legal parent to the children.

He said he cannot afford to start a family of his own because of the thousands of pounds he has to pay in child maintenance.

He said: "These women wanted to be parents and take on all the responsibilities that brings. I would never have agreed to this unless they had been living as a committed family.

“I am already paying for a family…I'm not a high-flying City banker.”

But Ms Arnold today expressed her surprise at his desire for his own children, claiming he had told her and her partner that he did not want any.

"That's funny because just before he stopped seeing his daughter, he informed us that he and his girlfriend at the time did not want children," she said.

Mr Bathie said: "I don't have any particular ill will. It's the fact that I still even now don't see why I should have to pay for another couple's children."

Source

Hmm... well he cant have the good parts of being a father and not the responsibilities that go with that.
You either decide at the beginning you want to be known by the children as 'Daddy' - or you dont.

Back to top

Australia legislation

We found this page and site very useful and informative.


Australian Legislation on Donor Conception

The practice of donor conception has been used as a method of reproductive technology for decades in Australia. Indeed donor insemination may well have
been used as early as the first decade of the 20th Century. It has been for the most part conducted in secrecy with donors remaining anonymous. The
majority of parents maintained the secrecy suggested to them by medical practitioners by not telling their donor conceived children the truth
about their parentage.

Sperm Donation in Other Countries

Here soon

Back to top

Discussion and Useful related articles

Questions about sperm donation for our web site?
Please email us - info@sperm-donors-worldwide.com