In Interest of R.C

In In Interest of R.C. (Colo. 1989) 775 P.2d 27, 29, the Colorado Supreme Court addressed a Colorado statute identical to section 7613(b), which applied to both married and unmarried women. At issue were the parental rights, if any, of a man who provided semen to a physician that was used to impregnate an unmarried friend of the man. The man claimed that the woman had promised that he would be treated as the child's father. The court recognized that the Model UPA addressed only the artificial insemination of a woman married to someone other than the semen donor, adding that the parental rights of a semen donor are 'least clearly understood when the semen donor is known and the recipient is unmarried.' (R.C., supra, 775 P.2d at pp. 31, 33-34.) The court concluded that the statute did not apply when a man donated semen to an unmarried woman with the understanding that he would be the father of the resulting child: 'We conclude that the General Assembly neither considered nor intended to affect the rights of known donors who gave their semen to unmarried women for use in artificial insemination with the agreement that the donor would be the father of any child so conceived. The statute simply does not apply in that circumstance.' (Id. at p. 35.) The Colorado Supreme Court was thus faced with a situation in which a man provided semen, through a physician, to an unmarried 'friend' who allegedly had promised that the man would be the father of the resulting child.