Father took legal action against donor-conceived daughter after DNA test – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country

– It is very hurtful and unkind that he went to court to avoid being a father. It came as a shock.

18-year-old Marie talks about the man she grew up with as her father, the one who held her in his arms at the hospital when she was a newborn.

Marie is not her real name. She has been anonymised due to her young age and her father.

– I was with him every other weekend and during holidays. We played a lot of games and often went to the zoo. He has been a good father in a way.

Disagreement about sperm donation

Marie was conceived with donor sperm in Denmark in 2005 while the parents were still a couple.

Last summer, her mother told her the secret. According to Marie, the relationship with her father had deteriorated at that time, and she did not want to have contact with him.

Still, she had not imagined what was about to happen.

The father brings the case to court as a paternity case. He says he did not know that Marie was donor-conceived until her daughter herself confronted him about it last year.

This is clear from a document his lawyer has sent to the Agder district court.

“Father states that the use of a donor was discussed, but that there was never an agreement on a final decision”

Marie’s mother rejects this.

– That is a completely false claim. It was something we did together. We tried for a long time with test tubes and insemination in Norway without success. In the end we went to a clinic in Denmark and were inseminated with donor sperm, she says to NRK.

A medical record from the clinic states: «Couplet is set to donor IUI here today» and “Donor IUI is done without problems”

Won in the district court

At the beginning of April, the father won in Agder District Court. In the judgment, reference is made to DNA tests carried out by Marie and the mismatched father. The conclusion is that he is not her father.

– I was very surprised and mildly shocked when the verdict came, says the mother, who has appealed.

In a preliminary assessment, the Court of Appeal writes that there may be grounds for overturning the district court’s judgment.

“The reason for this is that the district court does not seem to have dealt with the question of paternity on the basis of assisted fertilization (insufficient grounds for judgment), cf. the Children’s Act §9 fourth paragraph(…)»

– Here it seems as if the referee has made a hair-raising mistake. If I hadn’t appealed, Marie would have become fatherless, says the mother.

Marie fears that in any case it is too late to build trust in her father.

– If he had not gone to trial, I would most likely have spoken to him again. It is sad and painful not to have a father on paper.

NRK has requested an interview with Marie’s father, who has refused because the sentence is not legally binding.

– Lack of legal protection

The association for donor-conceived people, DUIN, believes the case shows that children and young people like Marie are not protected well enough in the law.

– If the law can be interpreted so that it is only the father’s DNA that makes a child fatherless, then it contradicts everything we think about parenthood, says leader Raymond Kristiansen Egge.

– How do you react to the verdict?

– It is terrifying. Around 2,000 donor-conceived children are born in Norway each year who do not have sufficient legal protection under the Children’s Act.

He also believes that parents must be better informed about what it means to bring someone else’s DNA into the family.

– I have heard several stories about fathers who struggle with the attachment to the child they are not biological parents of. I can also relate to this in my own upbringing.