If Monica Lewinsky had been this resourceful, President Clinton might be paying child support to her right now.
In February the Illinois appellate court wrestled with a question that almost seems too outlandish to be real: If a couple never has intercourse but the woman secretly impregnates herself with the man's sperm, is the man legally responsible for the child? Apparently so, said the courts.
The woeful tale began six years ago when Richard O. Phillips, a Chicago doctor, had a brief romance with another doctor, Sharon Irons. According to Phillips, the two never had intercourse, but Irons did perform oral sex on him on three separate occasions. According to court papers, Phillips alleged that Irons secretly kept his sperm and later impregnated herself with it. Phillips had no idea until Irons filed a paternity lawsuit two years later. DNA tests confirmed Phillips was the genetic father and Phillips was ordered to pay $800 a month in child support.
Phillips countersued, arguing that Irons deceived him and that he was tormented by \feelings of being trapped in a nightmare."" He also claimed that Irons had stolen his ""property,"" i.e. his sperm, so she had no right to use it for impregnation without his consent.
The courts dismissed his claim in 2003, ruling that his suffering was not severe enough to justify legal remedy. It further asserted that Phillips could claim no property rights to his bodily fluids after the act.
According to the Associated Press, the court wrote, ""[Irons] asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift -- an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee. There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.""
Not surprisingly, Phillips appealed, and won a partial victory. The appellate court declared that Phillips' pain did justify a lawsuit on the grounds of intentional infliction of emotional distress, a lawsuit that is ongoing.
The court also found that if Phillips' claim is true, Irons ""deceitfully engaged in sexual acts, which no reasonable person would expect could result in pregnancy, to use plaintiff's sperm in an unorthodox, unanticipated manner yielding extreme consequences,"" according to the AP.
However, the appeals court agreed that the sperm was a donation and hence could not be classified as stolen property. Also, since Phillips is undisputedly the biological father, the court upheld his paternity obligations.
Irons now argues that Phillips made up the whole story, that the couple did indeed have sex but Phillips is trying to circumvent child-support payments. It is unclear to what degree Irons asserted this argument in court, but court documents seem to indicate the judges made their decisions under the assumption that Phillips' story was true, or at least likely.
Indeed, the story could be true, said Steven Lindheim, director of third-party reproduction at the UW Hospital.
""Sperm can live for 24 hours if they're kept warm,"" he said. ""Of course, there's a dramatic dropoff in viability with each passing hour."" Lindheim speculated that Irons could have placed the sperm onto a diaphragm or cervical cap, which would get the sperm close enough to the uterus that her chances of impregnation would be high. He also conjectured that Phillips was ""super fertile"" with a high sperm count.
While the court rulings might seem to contradict common sense, a UW-Madison professor understands the theory behind the thinking. Pilar Ossorio is an assistant professor of law and bioethics who said Wisconsin hasn't dealt with a case like this yet, but if it does, it would likely rule as Illinois did.
""Over the last part of the 20th century, courts came to believe it's better for a child to have two parents responsible for it, that it's not just a parental right or responsibility but also a right of the child,"" Ossorio said. ""So courts go a long way in providing [to] a child a mother and a father -- and only one of each -- where possible.""
In cases where artificial insemination is performed by a doctor and the woman is married, the husband has to explicitly consent or he is not legally considered the father, Ossorio added.
I leave it up to you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions from this sordid tale.
Dinesh Ramde is a graduate student in journalism who was already afraid enough of women as it is. You can e-mail him at dramde@wisc.edu.
