Court: Babies Born From IVF Don't Legally Have Fathers

ATLANTA, GA — Men who donate toward in vitro fertilization do not automatically become the resulting child's father if they don't want to be, Georgia's highest court has ruled.

The ruling, handed down this week, overturned a lower court's ruling that a man whose ex-wife had a baby with him through in vitro was legally obligated as that child's father. The high court's ruling establishes different rules for in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination.

A Georgia law written more than 50 years ago states that "all children born within wedlock or within the usual period of gestation thereafter who have been conceived by means of artificial insemination are irrebuttably presumed legitimate if both spouses have consented in writing to the use and administration of artificial insemination."

In January 2014, David Patton filed for divorce against his wife, Jocelyn Vanterpool, after about three years of marriage. While the divorce was pending, the couple agreed to Vanterpool undergoing in vitro fertilization to have a child, using sperm and egg from the couple.

On Nov. 10, 2014, Vanterpool traveled to the Czech Republic for the procedure, in which an egg is fertilized outside a woman's body then inserted into the womb. Four days later, the couple's divorce was finalized.

Twenty-nine weeks later, on June 6, 2015, Vanterpool gave birth to a child. She would eventually sue seeking child support from Patton, who argued that he did not give "meaningful consent" to the in vitro fertilization and, even if he had, he wouldn't be the child's legal father according to the law.

While Georgia law does not specifically mention in vitro fertilization, Vanterpool's lawyers argued that's because the medical procedure wasn't known when the law was written in 1964 and that wording about artificial insemination should apply.

A Superior Court in Chatham County agreed, ruling in her favor. But, on Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned that decision in its 8-1 ruling.

"This appeal presents the question of whether that irrebuttable presumption applies to children so conceived by means of in-vitro fertilization," Justice Carol Hunstein wrote in an 11-page opinion. "We conclude that it does not and reverse the judgment of the Superior Court."

In the ruling, the justices noted that Georgia's legislature has amended and updated the section of the law dealing with this issue multiple times, most recently in 2009, and hasn't added in vitro fertilization to the language.

The lone justice dissenting, Christopher McFadden, wrote that he agreed with the argument that the legislature simply didn't know what in vitro fertilization was when the law was written.

"The ambiguity arose because the General Assembly failed to anticipate subsequent advances in medical technology when it described the class of children under the statute’s protection," McFadden wrote in his dissent. The law "directs us to the conclusion that the intention of the General Assembly was to protect children like ... the child in this case."

The ruling could have legal ramifications for families of the tens of thousands of babies in the U.S. born from the procedure every year. According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, 65,787 babies were born via in vitro fertilization in the United States in 2015.

More than 1 million babies have been born from the procedure since the group started collecting data in 1985, SART said.

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