1. Currently, at least 15 states (Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Washington) have statutes on the books that mention AID. All of these statutes specifically provide that the resulting child is the natural child of the recipient’s husband, provided he has consented to the procedure. Five states require that the consent be filed with a state agency (Kansas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon) and 6 states, either directly or by implication, limit the practice of AID to physicians (California, Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon). Only 2 states, Washington and Texas, specifically provide that the sperm donor is not the father of the child. Oregon’s is the only criminal statute, and makes it a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by 30 days in jail, for anyone but a physician to select sperm donors and for a donor to provide semen if he “(1) has any disease or defect known to him to be transmissible by genes; or (2) knows or has reason to know he has a venereal disease.” The only state supreme court to ever rule on AID held a consenting husband liable for child support [People v. Sorensen, 437 P.2d 495 (Cal. 1968)]. An excellent overview of the law, which will not be repeated in this chapter, appears in the proceedings from the first conference, Healey, J., Legal aspects of artificial insemination by donor and paternity testing, in: Genetics and the Law (A. Milunsky and G. J. Annas), p. 203, Plenum, New York (1976).
2. Fletcher, J., Morals and Medicine, p. 134, Beacon Press, Boston (1954).
3. Huxley, A., Island, p. 193, Perennial Classic, New York (1972).
4. Quoted by Ramsey, P., Fabricated Man, p. 49, Yale University Press, New Haven (1970).
5. Ibid, at 53.