Fatherhood by Conscription: Nonconsensual Insemination and the Duty of Child Support

Much of the law relating to child support is based on thefact that it is typically in a child's best interest to receivefinancial support from mothers as well as fathers. In fact,child support is essentially a form of strict liability withthe justification being that the child is an innocent party,and thus, even those men who never consented to thesexual act that caused the pregnancy are nonetheless liable for the support of the resulting child. These meninclude males who become fathers as a result of statutoryrape and also adult males who became fathers either as aresult of sexual assault or having their sperm stolen andused by a woman for purposes of self-insemination.However, the courts' justification that all children areentitled to support from both biological parents has beenseriously undermined by the laws regulating artificialinsemination. In that context, a man only becomes thelegal father of an artificially inseminated child if heaffirmatively consents to fatherhood.

This Article arguesthat it is incongruous to allow exceptions for formal spermdonors yet deny similar protections wholesale for thosewho, although not in the setting of a sperm bank, neverconsented to the use of their sperm. Accordingly, thisArticle proposes that courts adopt an approach similar(albeit narrower) to that used in artificial inseminationcases to adjudicate child support claims against those menwho were forced into fatherhood as a result ofnonconsensual insemination.