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Comment by MakeUsersWant | Hacker News Reader

In Germany, a recent court ruling means it is impossible to donate anonymously. Another court ruling makes it impossible to get out of child support. EDIT: Child support only ends after around 5 years of university study.

I predict mail-order sperm or sperm bank tourism. Especially for high acheivers' sperm.

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The UK too has removed the right of sperm donors to be anonymous[1]. The scary part about it was that they did it after the fact. So people who donated on the grounds of anonymity then had the rules change on them after-the-fact.

So if you donated today who knows what the rules/responsibilities might be tomorrow?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_donation#United_Kingdom

Do you have a link to that ruling? AFAIR, the 2002 law change made it harder for the _social_ father to get out of child support.

So the sperm donor has to pay child support??

Not yet. The doctor has been ordered to disclose the donor's identity (which, AFAIR, he claims to not to know anymore). If the identity is known, the father then could be sued for child support.

> If the identity is known, the father then could be sued for child support.

Neither is it sure that would actually happen (it did in the US, not in Germany yet though) nor does that seem in the interest of the child in this specific case

As far as I know only the US had sperm donors pay child support so far.

News article about anonymity in Germany for sperm donors: http://www.dw.de/no-anonymity-for-sperm-donors-court-rules/a...

> As far as I know only the US had sperm donors pay child support so far.

I did not think that this kind of insanity was possible outside of a mental institution but apparently it is.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/01/02/us-sperm-donor...

The insanity is that it's not the woman who recieved the donation who was fighting for child support but the state.

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