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Family values: Staying together for the kids (I just fathered in New Zealand)

Caperton

Give Alabama politician Bill Johnson an award for combining two of the Republican party’s favorite family values: traditional families, and being fruitful and multiplying. Wanting to keep his family together, Johnson invited his wife of eight years and her three children to come with him as he moved to New Zealand to be with the numerous babies conceived of his sperm.

Johnson’s wife, Kathy Hale Johnson, told the New Zealand Herald that that Johnson recently returned to live in New Zealand where he donated sperm to at least 10 women without her knowledge.

“He wants me to move over there. He’s not coming back,” she told the newspaper.

She said Johnson plans to apply for residency so he can stay in New Zealand, and that he intends to donate sperm to additional women.

Johnson began donating sperm in 2011 while in Christchurch as a disaster-relief contractor. So far, he’s donated to at least 10 women, three of whom are currently pregnant.

Johnson told the New Zealand Herald that he was unable to have children with his wife and that the urge to have biological children was “a need that I have.” The Herald also reports that fertility specialists recommend that donors not donate to more than four families; some women say Johnson misled them about the number of women he’d impregnated. Johnson says he had planned to tell his wife about the pregnancies after the babies were born.

A conservative Christian who opposed gay marriage in his 2010 Alabama gubernatorial campaign, Johnson has said that he feels a responsibility to the babies made with his sperm, despite the fact that he mostly donated to lesbian couples and thus the babies will have two parents already. He’s returned to Christchurch to await the blessed event(s).

“He’s back there now. He says he has a commitment to them. He says he created these children and he has a responsibility to them,” [Kathy Johnson] says.

“I said ‘what about your commitment to your wife.’ He walked out.”

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25 thoughts on Family values: Staying together for the kids (I just fathered in New Zealand)

  1. To say nothing of his commitment to his stepchildren who, actually, you know, already know him and might have an emotional attachment.

    On the other hand, maybe they’re better off without…

    Does anybody know if he’s going to have any rights under NZ law to see these babies?

  2. I have so many questions about this story ( yes I know its not really my business but …) :

    Why would someone who wanted to be inseminated not go through an agency? From the linked article the women who received his sperm were using an online donor registry, so he knows who they are and where they live?

    Why does he think that the parents of these children will let him have any contact with the kids, once they are born? Does he legally have any visitation/custody rights to these children under New Zealand law?

    I also find the fact that he is a big proponent of “Traditional Families” and yet he is helping lesbian couples conceive AND abandoning his family so he can be with “his” children terribly ironic.

  3. “He’s back there now. He says he has a commitment to them. He says he created these children and he has a responsibility to them,” [Kathy Johnson] says.

    “I said ‘what about your commitment to your wife.’ He walked out.”

    He didn’t create his wife, problem solved! What a douchebag.

  4. Why would someone who wanted to be inseminated not go through an agency? From the linked article the women who received his sperm were using an online donor registry, so he knows who they are and where they live?

    Why does he think that the parents of these children will let him have any contact with the kids, once they are born? Does he legally have any visitation/custody rights to these children under New Zealand law?

    I can’t speak to their cases, but I know that some people go through unofficial avenues because going through an agency can be incredibly expensive, costing hundreds to thousands of dollars per attempt. The more you want to know about the donor, the more expensive it gets.

    I’d be interested to know the legal aspects, too. In the states, I think that he could get visitation if he really tried. A few years ago I acted as a donor for a lesbian couple I know, and the lawyer made it clear that, legally, I could be sued for child support for any child that resulted, so I would guess that a donor could try to obtain some kind of visitation or custody. It might depend on what kinds of contract (if any) they had… I signed a contract saying that I was giving up any custody/visitation claims, but who knows BJ did?

  5. Good point, I can see were the expense would discourage some people from using an agency. I have very mixed feelings about sperm and egg donation as it is, this just illustrates some of the legal and emotional gray areas. My parents had a family that was made up of bio, adopted and foster children. And in many cases the rights of the adults, especially in my foster sisters cases seemed to matter more than the needs of the children. I guess I just have a completely emotional reaction to the concept of “ownership” of children based on genetics, which is the vibe I get from everything the subject of the article says. He is willing to destroy his own marriage, possibly emotionally devastate his step-children (I don’t know how old they are so I can’t really say) and insinuate himself , probably against their wishes, into the families that turned to him for help conceiving.

    I can understand that if someone donated sperm they might want to know if any children were born and if they were healthy. You might want to register to be able to meet them when they are old enough, if they want that. But anything more gets into some very complex emotional territory for everyone involved. Especially the kids.

  6. @EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    Yeah, exactly: he’s moving to a different continent to…what? Try to insinuate himself into the lives of these other families, these children (some of whom apparently aren’t born yet?) to do…what? Does he think that these other parents want him in their lives? I see this going down like this: dude shows up in NZ, the parents are like, dude, we don’t want to see you, and then he goes and what? Sits in his apartment by himself, because he dumped his family back in the States? How is this a good thing for him? I am trying to see from his point of view but I can’t figure out what they heck he thinks would come of this.

  7. [His wife] said Johnson plans to apply for residency so he can stay in New Zealand, and that he intends to donate sperm to additional women. “He is obsessed with this. He doesn’t want to stop,” she said.

    He sounds frighteningly like a narcissistic man with a complex about his need to “spread his seed.”

  8. I’m a little worried about the fact that he’s an anti-gay politician and he donated sperm to lesbian couples. I hope he’s not going to try to “rescue” those kids from their parents somehow.

  9. Well my opinion as follows:

    1) He is a supreme douchebag.

    2) I dont judge his decision to have children despite his wife’s ability and/or desire to have any(more). Wanting biological children is a desire that a lot of people have and when it comes to changing your mind on dealbreakers in marriages sexuality, children, finances are all biggies that I generally give people a pass on.

    3) With that said, his first step should have been to divorce her BEFORE he started giving away his sperm (its his sperm he doesnt need her permission but notice is just basic respect for your marriage dude come the fuck on) and not wait until after children were about to be born and then leave her…publicly.

    4) Really? This guy thinks he can just go be a part of these fetuses which are soon to be children’s lives = supreme douchebag. They have two parents and he isn’t one of them.

  11. According to previous news reports, Johnson’s wife was unable to conceive because of a hysterectomy. I don’t know if this happened before or after their marriage and if children together were something they both wanted.

    But if having biological children was such a ‘need’ for Johnson, why not accomplish this through surrogacy? Isn’t that what couples do if they decide that they must have a genetic link to their offspring?

    This whole situation of moving down to NZ to be closer to “his” children is just plain weird. Like others have pointed out, is he going to be welcomed by the families of these children conceived with his sperm? It sounds to me like he’s convinced himself that these women are having these babies FOR HIM — that his “obsession” in donating sperm is based on the delusion that these children will belong to him once they’re born.

    His abandoned wife says that he’s determined to keep doing this. I hope that the publicity surrounding this story helps convince couples who are looking for a donor to decide he’s not the one for them. He sure seems to have unrealistic expectations about sperm donation.

  13. I keep going to this worst-case scenario thought where he donated to lesbian couples with the plan all along of trying to get the kids back. Probably because I’m reading the Handmaid’s Tale right now.

    I find it bad relationship protocol and rude that he would donate sperm without his wife’s knowledge; what freaks me out is that he appears to have no sense of boundaries when it comes to what that sperm means in the context of these other families. I really wish that these women would have been able to find a lawyer able to put some legal limits on his future relationship, but I’m guessing if they were avoiding paying agency fees they may not have been able to afford the legal stuff either.

  14. To my knowledge, his wife had her hysterectomy about two years before they were married, so it’s not like he didn’t know he’d never make babies with her. Whether he knew then that making babies was “a need that [he had]” or whether it cropped up later, I don’t know.

    Jadey and SophiaBlue, the fact that Mr. Christian Values donated to lesbian couples makes me wonder if that wasn’t some part of his plan from the beginning: Pick a family with two mommies, so he could then insert himself as Daddy (because of course the women would want him to be a presence in their lives).

    Of course, none of that explains why his “need” to make babies wasn’t satisfied by three of them, such that he’s going to continue to donate sperm. Exactly how many is he planning to make?

  15. Anyone know why fertility specialists recommend no more than four donations? I can’t think of a good reason to limit donations.

  16. Jadey,

    I agree that he’s an asshole for thinking he has some sort of right over these children, and for abandoning his family over this (and for being a homophobe, of course). But I don’t get why its rude or bad relationship-protocol to donate sperm without his partner’s knowledge or consent. As long as he had the right attitude about it (which he clearly didn’t), along the lines of “I realize that all I’m doing is donating my sperm to help out people who would like to have a child, and the children will be theirs, not mine”, I don’t see why he would have any responsibility to inform his wife about it.

  17. Anyone know why fertility specialists recommend no more than four donations? I can’t think of a good reason to limit donations.

    My guess would be to try to avoid situations like Kirk Maxey and his (estimated) 400 children. Who could all live in roughly the same area. And would have no idea that they were half siblings.

  19. Pick a family with two mommies, so he could then insert himself as Daddy

    My first thought was to wonder if he would uproot himself, leave his wife and family, and move across the globe if these were straight couples. It’s possible that that was his motivation from the start, but even if it wasn’t, I bet it nagged at him in the months following. I’d be curious to know of the couples can bar him from interacting with their kids–I really hope so, this guy does not sound like the kind of person who should be around children of same-sex couples. I mean, yikes.

  20. But I don’t get why its rude or bad relationship-protocol to donate sperm without his partner’s knowledge or consent. As long as he had the right attitude about it (which he clearly didn’t), along the lines of “I realize that all I’m doing is donating my sperm to help out people who would like to have a child, and the children will be theirs, not mine”, I don’t see why he would have any responsibility to inform his wife about it.

    Because it’s rude and a bad relationship move to do things that will reasonably be of interest to your partner without letting them know. Like it would be rude and bad form to make a major expensive non-emergency/non-necessity purchase without talking to your partner when you have a joint account (especially if you’re on a tight budget). Like it would be rude to take a new job in a different country without talking to a partner to whom you have committed to living and sharing a house with and who has committed the same to you. Unless you have a reasonably solid previous understanding of what your partner will be cool with not knowing, don’t do those things without talking with them about it. And let’s be real – in most conventional relationships in our contemporary society, people generally want to be informed about their partner’s sperm donation, especially if fertility is a potential sore point in the relationship.

    By “rude” I mean just that – I don’t mean evil, abusive, or even wrong. (I do think his follow-up behaviour is wrong though, in terms of ditching his wife and harassing the families.) But it’s rude and stupid to do if you are trying to have a working, affectionate, fulfilling partnership with someone. Don’t lie, including by omission, about things that will be a big deal to your partner and will affect your relationship with them. Co-living 101.

    Are there exceptions where there are competing priorities? Yes. I don’t think a person with a uterus is necessarily rude not to disclose an intended or performed abortion because of the incredibly and damaging social pressure against abortions – in an ideal world, this would not be such an issue, but a person sharing their body with a foetus for nine months has a significantly greater physical impact than a sperm donation, so it’s not actually a comparable situation although one I know someone will try to make. It also obviously depends on how committed the relationship is and how much the other person has invested in it. Also, disclosing and discussing with a partner is not the same thing as capitulating – if this guy had explained to his wife what he planned to do and why he wanted to and they reached the impasse then, I don’t think it would have been rude for him to still go through with it if it was more important to him than the risk to his relationship. What was stupid and disrespectful was the deception.

  21. OK, I think I get that. I guess I can’t really see why someone would particularly care that their spouse made a sperm donation, but given that a lot of people do in fact seem to care (for reasons I’m fairly sure are not very sound), it is plausibly rude not to talk to them about it before doing it.

  22. My guess would be to try to avoid situations like Kirk Maxey and his (estimated) 400 children. Who could all live in roughly the same area. And would have no idea that they were half siblings.

    If the concern is to prevent accidental in-breeding, four seems like an excessively cautious cut-off, except in very small communities.

  23. If the concern is to prevent accidental in-breeding, four seems like an excessively cautious cut-off, except in very small communities.

    Well, this is New Zealand, which isn’t tiny, but it’s not huge, either. Four kids would be (if my math is right) about .001 percent of the entire population of Christchurch, and Johnson donated to at least ten families. In an island nation with the population of Kentucky, that’s a major hit to genetic diversity. That’s ten (or more) people not knowing they’re half-brothers and -sisters, and then however many kids they have not knowing they’re cousins, and then however many kids they have…

  24. As a New Zealander, I might be able to clear up a few things people are a little uncertain about. Full disclosure: I’m not a lawyer, so there may be cases/exceptions I don’t know about, but I have read the law in this area.

    Firstly, cost is a potential issue for IVF treatment in NZ, but the government will fund up to three full courses of IVF provided that the person intending to carry the child meets certain criteria. They must be under 40 to get free IVF, for instance, and not be smokers. The public/private divide here is not strong, in other words – some private fertility centres provide treatment paid for by the government e.g. Fertility Associates.

    In addition, men cannot be paid for donating sperm here. No commercialised sperm donation of any kind is allowed. Several years ago, I read an article about the shortage of sperm donors to sperm banks here, and to my knowledge, many women arrange their own sperm donors. Even if they do not know them personally beforehand, all sperm donors and recipients must be known to one another if they go ahead with IVF – both parties must know names and details. This is largely to protect the children born following sperm donations (to prevent them later marrying their half-siblings by accident and similar situations). It’s here his behaviour is most legally questionable, since he met some of the women under a false name.

    Mostly, donors have no legal rights to contact with children which result from a donation – they are indemnified from paying child support and they have no right to make decisions for or have access to the children. Their names are not placed on birth certificates (though they are recorded by the Births, Deaths and Marriages system). Sometimes, particularly if the donor is known to the couple, the parents might encourage or allow a continued relationship with the child, but they have no legal rights. Technically, if these women want nothing more to do with Johnson, there is no way he can legally have contact with their children. His decision to move to Christchurch seems particularly bizarre in this light. He certainly will not be able to supplant one half of any lesbian couple legally here, and these women would have legal redress if they want him to leave them and their families alone.

    And a donor is allowed to donate to four separate families, up to 10 children – it’s not a limit of four kids. As Caperton says, 10 kids is a LOT of kids in a population of 4 million people in the entire country. Limiting sperm donors to producing 10 children – when they can go on to have their own families with their partners as well – is not really that unreasonable.

    Hope that clarifies a few points.

  25. Because it’s rude and a bad relationship move to do things that will reasonably be of interest to your partner without letting them know. Like it would be rude and bad form to make a major expensive non-emergency/non-necessity purchase without talking to your partner when you have a joint account (especially if you’re on a tight budget).

    Sooooo not a good analogy. An individual’s reproductive rights are private and person-specific they are NOT joint like bank accounts. Just as a woman has a right to donate eggs/sperm without consent or fore knowledge to her partner thus does a man to do the same with his semen/eggs. Spouses do not “own” part of the other spouses gametes.

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