Amie Cullimore, a medical practitioner, filed a child support claim against Michael Ranson, who more than two decades ago donated his sperm to Amie Cullimore, who subsequently conceived two children. Cullimore alleges that throughout the years, Ranson has assumed the role of loco parentis, which means that Ranson has stood in the place of the parent throughout the years. Ranson filed a response that Bill 28, also known as, All Families Are Equal Act, which extinguishes Cullimore`s claim based on the assertion that the surrogate parents who lack an intention to be parents cannot be considered parents in law.
Issue
Are sperm and egg donors parents and can they be sued for child support?
Conclusion
No, according to section 5 of the newly introduced
…show more content…
In addition, the issue rests on whether Ranson has assumed the role of loco parentis (i.e., standing in the place of the parent) in reality? All Families are Equal Act, also known as Bill 28, seems to protect Ranson against Cullimore`s claim for child support. Section 5 of Bill 28 states that the sperm donors are not considered to be parents “This section is deemed not to apply to a person whose sperm is used to conceive a child through sexual intercourse if, before the child is conceived, the person and the intended birth parent agree in writing that the person does not intend to be a parent of the child.” However, Bill 28 received a Royal Assent only on December 5, 2016, which means that Cullimore could ask the court to make a retroactive child support claim against Ranson based on legislation and case law prior to Bill 28 coming into effect. If court grants Cullimore`s request, the court will have to examine the factual evidence based on individual circumstances of the claimants. If court finds that there was no written agreement between Ranson and Cullimore, and if Ranson did not stand in the place of a parent, and did not demonstrate the settled intention of being a parent of Cullimore`s two children, then Cullimore`s claim will likely be …show more content…
For example, in Cheng v Cheng the court held that it is enough to demonstrate a settled intention to treat children as their own for the person to be liable to pay child support. Moreover, the child support responsibilities could extend beyond the biological parentage, because in Cheng v Cheng these obligations extended to the
Mike McKee’s article, "Weighing the Right to Own an Embryo," made the front page of the Recorder, a daily legal newspaper published in San Francisco reporting on legal advice and interests of attorneys and legal practitioners. How did he make his article such a success? What made it front page worthy in the eyes of this legal audience? McKee’s article, "Weighing the Right to Own an Embryo," appeals to a legal audience by presenting an unbiased framework and evidence.
Procedural Facts: In May 2010, a couple of months after Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski donated his sperm and have eight eggs fertilized for freezing, Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski sent Defendant Karla Dunston a text message ending the relationship. In August 2010, two months after the relationship ended, Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski filed a pro se complaint in the circuit court of Cook County. Plaintiff Jacob Szafranski sought to keep Defendant Karla Dunston from using the frozen pre-embryos so he was not forced to father a child against his will. Defendant Karla Dunston ended up counterclaiming and asking the court to grant her sole custody and control over the pre-embryos so she could someday use the pre-embryos to bear her children. Defendant Karla Dunston sited breach of contract and asked the court for relief under promissory estoppel. The circuit court ended up siding with Defendant Karla Dunston by granting her full custody and control over the use of the frozen pre-embryos.
On January, 23 1906 a white woman named Nevada Taylor was dropped off the bus station in Chattanooga, Tennessee at 6:30 p.m. only two and half blocks from her home. Little did she know she was being followed? A man grabbed her by the neck and drug her ten feet before throwing her over a fence. She screamed and struggled as he put a leather strap around her neck and threatened to cut her throat. Taylor accounts waking up about ten minutes later in torn and dirty clothes covered in bruises. Her doctor later confirmed she had been raped. She claimed to have never of saw the face of the attacker but he had a soft voice of a black man. During this time of prejudice, segregation and hatred towards Negros was just a way of life for the
In 1984, a protest was held during the Republic National Convention, in Dallas. The demonstrators were protesting the policies of the Reagan Administration and a few companies based in Dallas. Gregory Lee Johnson, at the time a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, participated in the protest. When the protestors reached Dallas City Hall, Johnson doused an American flag in kerosene and set it on fire. Johnson was charged with violation of Texas law, "intentionally or knowingly damages, defaces, mutilates, or burns the flag of the United States or the State of Texas." His actions were classified as a class A misdemeanor. Johnson was convicted, sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $2,000. He appealed to the Fifth Court of Appeals in Texas, stating that his actions were protected by “symbolic
Purdy defends surrogate mothering from a consequentialist point of view. Her case is founded on two premises: firstly, that surrogacy is favourable (that is, it brings about pleasure and reduces pain), and secondly, that the practice is only non-traditional and not morally reprehensible. She thus concludes that "appealing to the sacrosanctity of traditional marriage or of blood ties to prohibit otherwise acceptable practices that would satisfy people 's desires hardly makes sense", and thus, surrogacy should be permissible (Purdy, 1999).
Cases of this kind emphasise the tension between two significant policy goals: the child’s best interests, which must dominate the court’s determination as to whether to grant parenting orders, and the prohibition of commercial surrogacy. The former, naturally, prevails. In every published case, the Family Court relied on the evidence tendered by the intended parents indicating the foreign birth mother’s consent to the applications, even where some of that evidence was quite concerning; the birth mother’s lack of interest in parenting the child;and the satisfactory nature of the parenting arrangements achieved under the agreement, in concluding that the best interests of the child were served by making the parenting orders.The earliest published international surrogacy case is Re Mark (an application relating to parental responsibilities). The facts are fairly typical. A couple from Victoria entered into a surrogacy contract under which a woman in California agreed to bear a child for them; the ovum was supplied by an anonymous woman, and one of the applicants provided the
Miller v. Johnson 1995 was a United States Supreme Court Case that decided whether racial gerrymandering was unconstitutional or not. This issue was very controversial, but before being able to understand how the case affected the use of racial gerrymandering, one has to understand what gerrymandering is. Every state is made up of different districts, and each district is entitled to their own votes when it comes to elections. Gerrymandering is the manipulation of district boundaries in a way that creates a political advantage in elections by putting a large group of people who are likely to vote for a certain party in one district.
Commercial surrogacy is the process in which a woman is paid a fee to carry and deliver a baby to term. Once the baby is delivered, the woman relinquishes all parental rights to the commissioning couple who exclusively raise the child as their own. Altruistic surrogacy, by contrast, is an arrangement where the surrogate receives reimbursement but only for the expenses that she may have incurred during the pregnancy. In this essay I will argue that commercial surrogacy should not be market-inalienable. I will start by outlining Elizabeth Anderson’s argument in “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?” in which she offers a number of criticisms to commercial surrogacy. I will then outline objections to the argument and highlight how her argument is highly speculative and does not provide an adequate basis for the prohibition of commercial surrogacy.
The procedures of surrogacy is a delicate and sensitive topic which raises many concerns in the public. As a result of this, Australian laws and courts of law must allow and regulate these practices to make it safe for all involved. Commercial forms of surrogacy agreements are illegal in most states, shown in Part 2, Division 2 in the Surrogacy Act 2010 NSW and Chapter 4 Part 1 in the Surrogacy Act Qld. However, in remaining jurisdictions, couples are allowed to deal in commercial agreements and therefore often turn to an overseas arrangement. It is here where Australian law becomes more obscure and less regulated. In any arrangement including altruistic surrogacy, there are no enforceable laws on the agreement, hence prompting multiple issues regarding the parentage of the child. When the child is born from the gestational carrier- the birth mother and father, according to the Status of the Children Act 1996, are the legal parents. It is when the intended parents apply for a parenting order and accepted by the birth mother that the child’s parentage is transferred- this situation is set out in the case of Re Michael
I believe that it´s the same offender in the Parkinson case and the Johnson case, which is making the offender a serial killer because he has killed 3 people and it has been over a period over 30 days. By looking at different serial killer typologies my firm belief is that this offender will fall into the lust serial killer typology. I concluded this by firstly looking if the crimes were act-focused kills or process kills, I concluded it was process kills because the offender had taken the time to abduct both Parkinson and Johnson and didn 't just kill them right away like an act-focused killer would do. With the offender being a process killer he could only be organized as well because process killers cannot be disorganized. The offender would either be a lust killer, power-control killer or a thrill killer. I concluded that the offender in this case would not be a thrill serial killer, since this kind of murderer gets off my seeing his victims suffering, which is the most important factor for this type of offender. In the Parkinson and Johnson murders there were no signs of torture on the victims bodies and therefore I do not believe that this offender would be a thrill serial killer.
It wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that more unmarried pregnant woman opted to keep their babies instead of putting them up for adoption (Else, A., 2012). Due to the financial pressures of sole-parenting the Domestic Proceedings Act was introduced in 1968, which required fathers to pay mothers some maintenance for
Society’s opinions are constantly, and rapidly changing, and consequently this poses significant challenges to the family law system in Australia. A family is a social unit containing individuals related by blood, marriage or other legally recognised relationships. Family law reforms have been implemented over the past three decades, entailing the recognition of same sex couples. Furthermore, a statutory presumption of shared parenting – as instigated by society’s transitioning values – displays the changing nature of parental responsibility. Not only are society’s views progressing, but surrogacy and birth technologies are
United Kingdom courts may consider additional connecting factors in establishing domicile of origin, such as adoption. If the factor of adoption is not present in the case, United Kingdom courts do not permit changes of domicile of unmarried children under the age of 16 unless their parents from whom they depend change their domicile. The only exception to the general rule can be inferred from Section 4 of the Domicile and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1973, according to which the domicile of dependency may be established in the light of the following connecting factors: a) changes of the father’s domicile may justify changes in his child’s domicile; b) the mother is entitled to elect whether her child’s domicile must be changed with hers, under the condition of the father’s death or of when the child is illegitimate. However, the factor of adoption changes everything, as it allows an adopted child to receive a new domicile of origin derived from the
The following two cases were taken against Ireland and therefore directly affect Irish family law. In the case of Johnston v Ireland, the court held that family life existed where a non-married heterosexual couple had lived together for 15 years. In Keegan v Ireland, the applicant challenged the Irish adoption law that allowed an unmarried mother to place her child for adoption, without the consent of the father. The applicant argued this treatment of non-marital fathers violated article 6, the right to fair trial, and article 8 of the ECHR. The Court held in favour of the applicant and found that when an unmarried couple are living together, a child born in that relationship is part of the family unit, which will continue if the parents no longer live together.
Some view altruistic surrogacy as a form of exploiting the surrogate. There is no monetary compensation to woman placing her health and well-being on the line for another’s benefit. However, it can also be held that the woman knowingly entered into the agreement with full disclosure of the risks and benefits to her health and body. Again, autonomy and justice are extremely prevalent ethical principles to explore when discussing the topic of surrogacy. Same-sex marriage has become a hot topic in the United States in the last few years. The idea of raising a family by homosexual