Single mother with donor sperm, husband unaware

Swetha, Are U a lawyer or a law student ,UR previous post was also similar.

www.lawyersclubindia.com/forum/Are-non-married-indians-eligible-for-sprem-ovam/donation/clarify

Then I shall come into the legalities.

I too have some doubts on your many be "cooked" story. Sweta as it has been rightly pointed out by our Mr Sai Nath Devalla.Come true by sending PM to me, I shall rightly advise you what should you do but only if you come clean handed. 

@Yentene Banta

I don't think IVF procedure needs to undergo any huge legal formalilities.  The hospital authorities are totally unaware of the lady's true marital status, that is, separated. The lady has told them (infact signed on hospital documents) that she is unmarried. It is absolutely legal in India for an unmarried lady to become a single mother with donor sperm. Thus hospital authoroities can in no way be held responsible for any corruption. (By "hospital" here I mean registered fertility clinic where only artificial reproductive techniques like IUI, IVF are practised).

@Sainath Devalla,

I am an IT professional working in an MNC. This incident is one of my office collegues.

@Anand Bali,

It is not possible for me to know whether the lady has practised any wrong-doing other than concealing her marital status to the doctors. I just posted the version she told me. So nothing specific for me to PM you.

@All,

I see a huge article on adultery. I don't think the lady can be convicted of adultery here because there has been no s*xual contact or relationship with any man. IVF doesn't need s*xual contact. It is artificial fertilization. Collection of donor sperm was done by hospoital authorities only following legal procedures. She has all the documents in support of this.

Hi Sweta... 

It is hard to believe that a woman has shared such a sensitive personal story with a office collegue.

That apart.

There is a room for doubt that your collegue is trying to hide adultery in the name of IVF procedure.

That apart. 

Your collegue has bought all troubles in the world for her willfully.

More than herself, she has put the yet-to-be-born child in a big mess.

The husband is perfectly right that "no court in the world and no law in the world can force him to restore physical relationship with his wife."

Once the husband has taken such a stand, if your collegue really "thought it futile to waste further time over legal battle with a reluctant husband", she should have pursued mutual divorce before going for IVF.

Now, she has clearly violated the law and hence her husband can sue for his wife's offense that she hide her marital status.

But this can help him prove her wife's cruelty and get divorce easily.

And hospital can file a cirminal case against your collegue.

So, there is a suggestion that your collegue can abort the child and pursue mutual divorce.

This will avoid mess for everyone involved especially for the yet-to-be-born child.

Or Yentede Banta has a good suggestion for your collegue.

"
This is India.

You need to think what story you will cook to tell the baby which willl be delivered in some time.  Some more lies.
 

Its better that you stay silent, your husband will get divorce, you marry someone else stating that you have a kid out of wedlock.
 

Your story, if you tell to new person who you want to get married, will only lead to more problems.  SO change the story before you re-marry.  
"

More than planning for legal consequences, it is better to prevent them in first place.

Actually UR query attracts academic interest than reality.

Well let me presume it is real.Section 497 ipc does not attract her act.Hiding the fact that she is married leads to suppression of material facts about marital life,though living separately.The hospital will not indulge in blind process and there will be many legalities involved in it.As she is not divorced from her husband,she can be prosecuted by law on the advice of the husband for breaking marital cords.Hence as of now the husband is at an advantegious position legally.

How can a pregnant lady hide her motherhood and move around in the office? She needs to apply for maternity leave and needs to submit a copy of her doctor's prescripttion to the HR department for leave approval. She can't resign from a promising career to hide herself, right? At least not at this age. We all knew the lady was married; many colleagues infact attended her wedding three years back. Now her doctor's prescripttions reveal terms like AID (Artificial Insemination by Donor), husband's name kept blank and her name is prefixed as 'Miss XYZ' instead of 'Mrs. XYZ'. How can she escape the truth? She can hide herself from the entire world, but not at her workplace where she needs to submit all necessary documents (including a copy of child's birth certificate post-delivery) to avail maternity leave.

Very true. Totally agree.

Very justified question. I also asked the same question to the lady, to which she reasoned somewhat as follows:

"I am lucky that I have conceived by IVF, that too in the first attempt itself. But IUI/IVFs are no magic, there is no guarantee in such procedures. The overall success-rate of such artificial reproductive techniques is very less. Take-home baby percentage is only 15-20%.  A huge number of couples go home empty-handed. This statistic stands true even in the best fertility clinics around the world, including developed countries. Now if I had divorced my husband prior to going for IVF and then failed to conceive, I would have been a double-loser. The disappointment would have been too much for me to take. It would have been a gamble I could never risk."

The lady demands she will hide nothing from her child. The child will know the truth right from the beginning. She says they will have open discussion on everything, starting from her marriage to separation to IVF with donor sperm hiding marital status to her would-be-divorce. She believes that being aware of the truth since kindergarten age would create less emotional impact on the child than stumbling upon the truth at teenage or adulthood.

Of course, the lady has to maintain her “unmarried” status while admitting the child to school, to keep herself in sync with her medical records, pregnancy records and the child’s birth certificate (where father’s name will be blank).

This one is a poor suggestion. Firstly, the question of remarriage doesn’t arise. The lady is determined to stay single lifelong. Secondly, a child born out of donor sperm to a single mother will never bear the donor’s name or signature in his/her birth certificate (Sperm donation is anonymous). Nor will the lady’s current husband agree to sign as father in the child’s birth certificate. How can the mother claim she has the child out of wedlock?

Once a lady declares herself as ‘unmarried’ on hospital documents, the hospital should bear no obligation to her single motherhood. No further legalities are involved on hospital’s behalf since she is doing nothing illegal, as far as they are aware. (If you are aware of any further hospital legalities, please describe). Yes, they required written consent from the lady’s guardian (parents) prior to administering her anaesthesia for ovum collection/egg retrieval surgery. (Taking written consent from patient’s legal guardian before administering anaesthesia is mandatory to ANY surgery, nothing IVF-specific.)

All in all, the queries asked in the first post of this thread still lie unanswered.  Kindly share your thoughts.

Originally posted by : Sweta Pahari
	1. What kind of legal danger, defamation and penalty do you lawyers foresee her to go through? 2. She knows her divorce will be confirmed if her offense is out and she is now infact keen to get divorced. But what else more punishment can she expect from the marital front?  3. What legal steps can the hospital authorities take against her once they learn the truth? Does her action come under criminal conspiracy? 4. Can she get imprisoned? 5. She is most worried about this query - Will the birth certificate of the child get stamped as "CORRUPTED", by court order? This can destroy the entire future of the child. Or nothing like this ever happens/happened? The lady is just too worried? 6. Similarly, will all the medical documents of the lady in relation to her IVF and pregnancy get stamped as "CORRUPTED", by court order?

To conclude with,I would like to state that the wife is answerable only to her husband.Though they are separated for various reasons and as they are not divorced officially,she cannot act on her own for begetting a child through medical technology and not adultery.( THE TERM ADULTERY DOES NOT EXIST IN THIS CASE)

Whatever it is, she has misled the hospital with false personal particulars and the husband has every right to proceed legally against her.

Everyone here seems so confident that the hospital/Artificial Reproductive Technique (ART) clinic won’t take any step even if the lady gets caught. I spoke to the lady (she is also following this thread) and she explained me how these ART clinics work –

All the registered ART clinics (practicing IUI, IVF, ICSI, egg donation, embryo donation, etc) and registered sperm banks and surrogacy centers in India are bound by the guidelines setup by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). You can go through ICMR guidelines online if you please, at https://www.icmr.nic.in/About_Us/Guidelines.html

Now, it is mandatory for all registered ART clinics and sperm banks and surrogacy centers in India to share all their success and failure reports and patient details annually with ICMR. The purpose is to maintain vigilance over performance and quality of these ART clinics. Clinics committing unethical/illegal practices and/or unable to produce nominal success rate over a certain number of years might come under ICMR scanner and may even lose their license if ICMR so decides. Similarly sperm banks also have to share their donor details annually with ICMR. Apart from maintaining quality, the purpose here is to save donor details in ICMR database so that a child born with donor sperm can track down his/her biological father after attaining 18 years of age if he/she so desires, even if the sperm bank closes down by then. Thus ART clinics might close down, sperm banks might pull down their shutters, but ICMR will exist as long as Indian govt exists, with details of all patient, donor and newborn child born via ART stored in its database.

Now, coming to our concerned case. The husband will definitely come to know of the lady's childbirth (from common relatives), be it before or after divorce. Thereafter he/his lawyer can easily track down her hospital name and other medical details from her workplace, go to that hospital/ART clinic and spill the beans. The hospital authorities will then definitely lodge a criminal complaint/FIR, if not, at least lodge a general diary in the local police station against the lady. It is common sense that they will do it for sure, for their own safety, else they themselves will be considered part of the conspiracy and face risk of license cancellation. Most alarming, the hospital authorities will then definitely notify ICMR about the lady's illegal action. And then goodness knows what steps will ICMR take against the lady!

As per our common sense, there is nothing much to fear from the husband. He will be more than happy just to get the divorce, toss the lady off his shoulders and move-on in life. All he will do is inform the hospital authority; the consequent course of legal/criminal actions will be taken up by the hospital & the ICMR. These are all our apprehensions based on simple common-sense, we are not aware of the exact legal guidelines and punishments applicable in this context.

Hence requesting the learned people here, if possible can anyone please throw some light stating what is the minimum and maximum punishment the lady might face if ICMR sues her for intentionally concealing her marital status and violating ICMR guidelines?  If ICMR sues her, under which section of IPC (or any other domain) will they sue her? (Please don’t bring adultery here. There can be no adultery with an anonymous sperm donor). The lady seems most distressed about one concern: Whether the court or ICMR may order to get the birth certificate of the child and/or mother's medical reports stamped as “CORRUPTED”?? Or write something disgraceful on those documents??

U URself have given the legalities involved.

Originally posted by : Yentede Banta
	Divorce, a ex husband tyring to nail you down, society, your initial lie to the fertility clinic, you  wanting another partner, what story will you tell that one?

Inspite of repeated assertions that the lady is looking towards single motherhood, why are you so bent upon that she wants another partner?