Texas has just passed a law expanding the definition of sexual assault to include reproductive fraud. Fertility fraud involves both gynaecologists who inseminate patients with their own sperm, as well as gynaecologists who exchanged sperm samples among several donors, thus providing erroneous information to their patients.
Several cases were recently discovered in Texas, including that of Eve Wiley, who testified during the hearings: born from a sperm donation, this woman contacted her donor through the official sperm donor registry. She even formed an actual relationship with him. However, when she did a DNA test to locate possible siblings, she discovered — to her astonishment — that she had no genetic connection with the donor chosen by her parents and was simply the daughter of her mother’s gynaecologist! “He is my biological father and it’s not a crime in the state of Texas”, she explained to the Court last month. “This is a person who you really trust”, explains Stéphanie Klick, the lawmaker who submitted the bill, “and they betrayed that trust. This would be considered a rape. Because you are doing something without consent”.
The law was passed unanimously. Now it only needs to be signed by the governor to take effect. The bill provides for prison sentences of six months to two years for physicians who knowingly use gametes other than those agreed with the parents, as well as a fine of up to $10,000.
Indiana also proposed a law this month penalizing fertility fraud, though it did not qualify it as sexual assault.
For further reading:
Dutch doctor accused of fathering at least 200 children in his own fertility clinic
Fertility fraud: are incriminated doctors protected by the law on sperm donor anonymity?
Bionews, Texas bill would treat ‘fertility fraud’ as sexual assault