WHO OWNS YOUR SPERM?

Possession is ten-tenths of the law.

When Boris Becker dropped by a London restaurant in 1999, he had no idea his bill would be so enormous: £2 million. That’s the he paid to settle a paternity claim brought by a waitress, who claimed she had a single sexual encounter that night.

Becker insisted he only had oral sex, and that his lawyers suggested the sometime model had inseminated herself. Legally, the how, where and why of the child’s conception are irrelevant. Now British courts have ruled that regardless of the circumstances behind a man’s becoming a father, he has to support the child.

After insemination, a man has no similar protection of his right to decide whether to become a father. But at what moment does he lose that right? Is ejaculation the legal point of no return? Does the fact that a woman lies to him about her birth control, retrieves his semen from a discarded condom, sexually assaults him after he’s fallen unconscious or rapes him, before he’s reached adulthood ,mitigate in any way his financial responsibility?

The answer, absurdly, is no. At present, no matter how a woman gets her hands on his semen (short of using a sperm bank, where the donors are anonymous), a man has no chance of avoiding the financial obligations of unexpected progeny. It is an inequity in the legal system that allows women not only to “steal” semen, but also to demand money from unwilling fathers- a way of finding a sperm donor who also pays for the child.

Lying to a man about using birth control is the most common situation where men get roped into fatherhood. Consider the recent case of the British Telecom executive. He met a woman at a nightclub, had a fling and expected the relationship to end, when she left for an extended trip to Australia. Instead, she called to say she was pregnant with his child.

Having used protection throughout the relationship, the executive felt he had been a victim of bad luck. But the woman admitted, first during an emotional phone conversation and later in a confessional letter, that she had taken his semen from a discarded condom while he was in the shower. Despite this, a court ordered the new father to pay support. He now finds himself on the hook for £167,000 before the child turns 18.

Until there is a law against misappropriating sperm, men who take reasonable precautions not to inseminate or who trust their partners to be honest about birth control, have no recourse should a pregnancy occur. Because, as any number of men can attest, semen can be the gift that keeps on taking.

Rodney Hylton-Potts is a Family Lawyer based in London with clients nationwide.