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The man who 'fathered' a non-biological daughter via an artificial insemination process has decided, with the support of his wife, to continue his legal fight against the Andalusian public health service (SAS). He rejected the regional advisory council's proposal for a compensation offer of 120,000 euros, claiming a settlement of 1 million euros for the semen sample handling error committed at a SAS hospital in Cadiz.
Lawyer Ignacio Martínez, who represents the family, has confirmed that the compensation proposed by the Andalusian advisory council is "flatly insufficient". The council is a higher consultative body of the Andalusian regional government, although it enjoys organic and functional independence from the regional government.
Now, the SAS will have to issue a final decision on the financial claim, which should logically match the solicited compensation, since the Puerta del Mar hospital has also acknowledged the error in the handling of the semen sample.
Martínez has stated his belief that the case will go to trial in the summer, as the family intends to maintain its request for one million euros for the "anomalous" functioning of the administration and, above all, for the psychological damage caused by being deprived of a genetic link that they should have had.
The parents, who at the time were still an unmarried couple, first went to the hospital in Cadiz in 2019, because they were unable to conceive a child naturally. They were included in the surgical demand register to undergo an assisted reproduction process that took place in 2021.
As is the procedure, an oocyte retrieval was performed for in vitro fertilisation with his sperm sample, or at least that is what they thought at the time. Three days later, the embryo transfer took place and the woman was able to become pregnant. The baby girl was born in good health nine months later.
Apart from repeated comments within the family, it was a chance occurrence that heightened the parents' suspicions. After raising some doubts, a relative of the parents, who had a healthcare background, read the child's birth certificate and discovered a mismatch in the blood groups of the three members of the family. He said that it was impossible for the girl to be the biological child of both of them. The parents turned to several medical websites on the internet and that confirmed their relative's doubts.
They decided to go to a laboratory specialising in clinical analysis and genetic studies to carry out a paternity test. In early 2023, they received the result, which confirmed their fears. The child was not the father's biological daughter.
The clinical analysis service of the Puerta del Mar Hospital issued a dictum in which they admitted the error that had happened during the assisted reproduction phase. It stated that the results would be justified by "the possibility of an alteration in the collection and handling phase of the semen sample".
Those who signed the dictum concluded that there is an "unequivocal causal relationship" between the "damage alleged and the health service provided", which leads to an "anomalous functioning of the public service", as the administration itself has acknowledged.
The advisory council, on the other hand, described the amount requested by the parents as "disproportionate and unjustified" and set the compensation at 120,215 euros. Of this amount, 41,658 euros are allocated to the father, some 24,995 to the mother and 53,561 to the little girl.
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