Just last week, Jason Patric won an appeal that a Los Angeles Court of Appeals handed down in his fight to establish and maintain rights of his four year old son, Gus. The actor fathered Gus with a former girlfriend who conceived the child through in-vitro fertilization.
Although the actor never signed a birth certificate, the court heard testimony that he did sign forms at the IVF Clinic as an intended parent, school forms and parental forms and co-parented the child for more than a year before their relationship ended.
However, the one thing that was missing in this particular action in support of his ex-girlfriends claims that he offered to donate sperm and have no parental rights to his son was a Sperm Donor Agreement.
Would a Sperm Donor Agreement have established all of rights and responsibilities established between these parties and the child? Yes! A Sperm Donor Agreement would have addressed such issues as legal rights to the child and as a parent, financial responsibilities if any, future contact, mediation and arbitration, to name a few.
A Sperm Donor Agreement is vital in these circumstances so don’t assume that this will happen, but instead ensure your rights or waiver of rights in these instances!
heARTbeat is a publication of the KingSpry Adoption/ART Law Practice Group. It is meant to be informational and does not constitute legal advice.
