SPERM DONATION LEADS TO LAWSUIT

In 2000, a gay man donated sperm to help a friend from medical school conceive one child, and then another.

Now, 16 years later, the mother, a medical doctor, is suing him for child support using a loophole in Ontario law that means known sperm and egg donors can be held liable for child support based on biology alone.

“He’s really being punished for the fact that he’s a known donor,” and that she didn’t buy sperm from an American bank since that practice remains illegal in Canada, said Shirley Levitan, the lawyer for Michael Ranson.

A bill before the provincial legislature to amend the Children’s Law Reform Act could close the loophole — but perhaps too late for Ranson, or other donors who stay involved in their biological children’s lives and don’t know the law, Levitan said.

Ranson and Dr. Amie Cullimore met in medical school in 1991, court documents say. Later, he moved to the U.S. and then Europe while she stayed in Canada. But in 2000 she called on him to fulfil a decades-old promise: donate his sperm so she could undergo IVF and become a mother. Eventually, she would have two babies using those embryos, both of whom are now teenagers.

Ranson’s legal team says he agreed to be a “spuncle” — fertility law slang for sperm donors who stay involved in their offspring’s lives. As a gay man, he had no intention of having his own children but was happy to help his old friend, and to remain in contact with the kids as a member of their extended family.

“The problem is he never would have donated if had he known she was seeking any financial support from him,” said Kelly Jordan of Jordan Battista LLP and Levitan’s co-counsel.

Cullimore, in her application first filed in 2015 in an Ontario court seeking child support, claims Ranson has acted the part of the children’s father; his parents acted as grandparents; the teens met Ranson’s extended family on holidays, with Ranson paying for trips for the boys to visit him in Europe, or to go to Disneyland; and in 2011, he gave Cullimore $22,000 to help with costs, a chunk of which is now in Registered Education Savings Plans to pay for the teens’ pending post-secondary education.

(Cullimore’s lawyer did not address an emailed series of questions from the Post.)

After the second child was born in 2002, the pair signed an agreement giving her full custody, as well as power over education and health care. It said she “would not look to (Ranson) for any financial support.”

But now she’s arguing he has acted as a father all along.

“They clearly view him as their ‘dad,’ ” the application states, adding the teens exchange emails with him, he signs them “dad,” and as recently as 2015 they spent a week with him and his partner in Italy. “The Applicant Mother has tried to pay for all activities, including ongoing childcare costs of over $800 per month as she works 24-hour shifts (as a medical doctor), but she can no longer afford to do so.”

Cullimore makes just under $250,000 a year as a gynecologist, obstetrician and university professor, the documents show, while Ranson made just under $280,000 in his most recent post with the World Bank in Europe.

If Cullimore is successful in her case, Ranson will be on the hook for four years of retroactive child support, as well as other expenses, including post-secondary education. His contributions would be “significant” and based on a grid used to determine child support payments, his lawyers said.

“He feels like now he’s being punished for having been a good spuncle,” Jordan said. “How does he maintain a good relationship with these kids now?

“This is not something he signed on for.”

Levitan said neither she nor Jordan, both of whom have been practising family and fertility law since the early 1990s, have seen a known sperm donor, or spuncle, sued for child support.

Bill 28, the All Families Are Equal Act, is before committee at the Ontario legislature. Levitan said it has some language that would protect men such as her client in the future, but only if they sign agreements before donating sperm. She said the bill as written extends stronger protections to sperm donors when children are conceived outside of a clinic — either through intercourse or athome insemination kits. She appeared last week before committee to propose amendments to ensure all donors are protected (and other issues with the bill are addressed).

A spokesperson for the attorney general said the bill “may be amended” in committee.