Court Opinion

ID: 9819611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:28:37.101965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:05.795841
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE TULLY, dissenting: The use of the terms “husband” and “wife” in section 3(a) of the Illinois Farentage Act (750 ILCS 40/3 (West 1999)) make clear that this provision applies only to married persons seeking to conceive children through heterologous artificial insemination. As plaintiff and defendant in this case were not married at the time of the procedure, the Act simply does not apply. The majority concludes, nevertheless, that because written consent is “mandatory” under the Act for a husband to become legally obligated for a child produced by artificial insemination, written consent is likewise mandated for an unmarried man to become legally obligated. In my opinion, however, this narrow construction of the Act, and the majority’s holding that “written consent” is an indispensable condition precedent to the imposition of a parental obligation, is historically moribund and contrary to basic fairness. Here, plaintiff, an unmarried African-American woman, was allegedly induced to undergo in vitro fertilization based on the promises and representations of defendant, plaintiffs partner of 10 years, that he would support any children resulting from the procedure. As inducement, defendant agreed to pay for the process of artificial insemination, accompanied plaintiff to doctors’ examinations, and injected plaintiff with the medications necessary to enhance her fertility. Defendant further participated in determining the ethnicity of the donor and selected a Caucasian donor so that the children would reflect his ethnicity and would appear to be his and plaintiffs natural offspring. When twin boys were born in 1993, defendant acknowledged them as his own, held himself out as their father, and provided financial support for the children for the next three years. Put plainly, on these facts, it seems an absurd result that “public policy” is invoked to bar plaintiff any means of recovery and to allow defendant a means to escape all parental accountability.