A Topeka couple who found a sperm donor online are supporting the donor’s fight against the state’s request that he pay child support.

Angela Bauer told The Topeka Capital-Journal (https://bit.ly/Z1dqgD) she and her former partner, Jennifer Schreiner, are “kind of at a loss” about the Kansas Department for Children and Families’ decision to file a child support claim against William Marotta, a Topeka man who provided sperm used to artificially inseminate Schreiner in 2009.

When Marotta responded to the Craigslist ad he agreed to relinquish parental rights, including financial responsibility to the child.

But when the women applied for state assistance this year, the state demanded they provide the donor’s name so it could collect child support.

A spokeswoman for the department said Friday she can’t comment on the case.

 

 

ORIGINAL: Kansas man who signed away his parental rights when he donated sperm to a Topeka couple is now being pursued by the state for child support after the mother received financial help from the state.

An attorney for William Marotta tells The Topeka Capital-Journal that the state’s effort to have Marotta declared the baby’s father runs contrary to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling.

The case is scheduled for a hearing Jan. 8 in Shawnee County District Court.

Marotta answered an ad in 2009 from a lesbian couple seeking a sperm donor. He and the couple, Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, signed an agreement holding him harmless for support of the daughter Schreiner conceived through artificial insemination.

Schreiner later fell on hard times and applied for state financial assistance.