Adoption, artificial insemination, and child support

On Feb 12, 7:36 am, gordonb.j9...@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) wrote:
[Dick Adams wrote:]
> >It is important to note that insemination by donor with the
> >written contractual consent of the husband is the legal
> >equivalent of an adoption.  My interpretation of this is
> >that the donor in such contracts has no legal/financial
> >responsibilities.
>
> Does even that work against a state looking for child support?  If
> my child was adopted by someone else (legally and with all the
> paperwork), am I on the hook if the adoptive parents later fall on
> hard times and can't support the child?

Unless the laws of the state in question are so messed up as to be badly in need of corrective revision, or unless something goes wrong with the particular adoption process so that the adoption never becomes finally effective, adoption is supposed to completely terminate all parental rights _and_ duties of the relinquishing birth parents, as far as the law is concerned.   If an adoptive parent goes on welfare, the state should not be able to look to the rights-relinquishing birth parents for child support.

> >The case of unmarried women poses problems that are beyond
> >the scope of my very limited knowledge which may not be
> >current.  If anyone can update/correct what I have writte,
> >please do so.
>
> Any married woman can become unmarried quickly.  All it takes is
> a drive-by, heart attack, drunk driver, medical mistake, or any
> of lots of ways for the husband to die.

The "married" status -- for purposes of laws presuming a child conceived during a marriage to be the legitimate offspring of the then-husband -- is determined at the moment of the procreative event, not thereafter (e.g. at birth).   So if Dad walks in front of a bus on his way escorting Mom home from the artificial-insemination clinic, or even if he has a heart attack while still in the doctor's office but _after_ the insemination-by-donor occurred, Junior is still legally considered the (late) husband's natural child.  Again YMMV so check local law, but that's the way it _should_ work.

Also, it shouldn't matter whether, assuming science is sensitive enough to detect relevant data long after the fact in a particular case, actual conception (fertilization of the ovum and creation thereby of a diploid zygote) or placental implantation occurs several hours or even days after Hubby kicked the bucket; what should matter time-wise is the precise instant when the semen was introduced into the vagina, which would fully account for the Hubby-got-hit-by-a-bus-before-Junior-came-into-being conundrum if you want to split hairs.  Now, if Hubby has his heart attack in the middle of the insemination process, I can't tell what a court would rule in that event, although maybe it would help to consider that if a natural father pulled a Nelson Rockefeller while engaged in procreation, that would seem to fall on the still-alive-at-the-critical-moment side of the line if enough sperm got out to create Junior before his ticker stopped ticking.

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