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The latest sparring in a state effort to have a Kansas sperm donor declared a father so he can be forced to pay child support is over what role the birth mother’s former same-sex partner should play in the proceedings.
Angela Bauer, whose former partner, Jennifer Schreiner, gave birth to a girl in 2009, has sought to intervene in the child support case. Bauer has said she wants to co-parent the child and cited a recent Kansas Supreme Court ruling that the non-biological mother of children in a same-sex relationship can have the same parental rights as the biological mother. The state is opposed.
This week, Bauer and sperm donor William Marotta, both of Topeka, asked Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi to reconsider Friday’s ruling that it’s premature to consider Bauer’s request to intervene. In Friday’s ruling, Mattivi also put on hold the state’s request for genetic testing.
Marotta has said he signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities when he answered a sperm donor ad from the two women on Craigslist. But because no doctor was involved in the artificial insemination, the state sought to hold him financially responsible when the women split and Schreiner sought state health insurance for the girl.
“We are arguing to be in the case, and my client feels prejudiced by not being in the case,” said Bauer’s attorney, Joe Booth. “The only reason Angie is not being allowed in the case right now is she is a female.”
Booth said if there was a question of who to name as a parent in a case involving two men and a woman, both men would be before the court.
Marotta’s attorney, Benoit Swinnen, said Mattivi is expected to reconsider Bauer’s role in the case by the end of the month.
Also, attorneys for the state have until May 17 to file a motion asking Mattivi to issue a partial judgment on the validity of the sperm donor contact.
“The decision that the court wishes to make on the validity of the sperm-donor agreement has far-reaching implications,” Swinnen said. “If the contract were to be found invalid this whole exercise would be for naught because we’ll still have several people claiming a parenting role in the life of the child.”
Copyright The Associated Press
