-
- His live-in girlfriend Kellie Smith became
pregnant in February 1997, while supposedly on the Pill -- we'll never
know -- despite a pact not to have children. Refusing to have an abortion
or marry him, she had the baby girl on Nov. 27, forcing Wallis into involuntary
fatherhood.
-
- "I'd spoken to Kellie and this was
planned," he claimed from his Albuquerque, N.M., condo last week.
"It was actually my requirement she be on the Pill as our common,
joint form of contraception. Now she denies we ever had this discussion."
-
- Wallis, 36, and Smith, 37, broke up when
she announced her pregnancy. Shortly after the baby was born, she filed
a paternity suit against him. Subsequently, after agonizing for a year,
he sued her for damages -- the child support he is statuted to pay until
his daughter, Taylor, now 18 months old, is 18.
-
- He's arguing fraud, breach of contract
and conversion, which his lawyer Ashley Gauthier says is "something
analogous to misappropriation. Some call it stealing, but it's not quite
stealing." It's taking something technically and lawfully belonging
to someone else -- in this case sperm -- and using it for an unauthorized
purpose -- procreation.
-
- Simple for Wallis, perhaps, but in the
realm of intimate male-female relations, this is a bio-ethical maelstrom,
teasing provocative questions out of the world's most classic deceit.
-
- Whose sperm is it anyway? His, while
it's inside him, but when it leaves ...? Is sperm a commodity, a gift from
a man to a woman? Does its transference then entitle the new owner to do
with it what she alone wishes? Or is sperm a potential baby, ergo life?
Do we own life, or are we its conduit, passing it from generation to generation?
-
- "It's life that goes on. Not us,"
states McGill University bio-ethicist and lawyer Dr. Margaret Somerville.
"The major ethical issue is that having a baby is not just producing
another pound of butter. It's the whole nature of the relationship, first
of all the couple and then of the couple to the baby."
-
- Wallis vs. Smith created quite an international
media ripple and was thrown out of court in February. It's sure to flare
up again as Wallis is appealing the dismissal, passionate to carry his
case to the U.S. Supreme Court if he must -- to prove a principle -- which
if he wins will be precedent-setting.
-
- "The principle is that fraud is
wrong even if it's in the bedroom," he stresses, denying self-seeking
motives of fame, martyrdom or revenge. "It's more wrong in the bedroom.
We have to trust people we deal with day-to-day. But I've been defrauded
by her. Yes, contraceptive fraud happens, but that doesn't mean we allow
it or condone it in society, does it?"
-
- The increasing prevalence of civil suits
stemming from reproduction is rooted in our society's "intense individualism,"
notes Somerville. "We believe we own our reproductive cells individually,
that we have life, own life, and the part of life we own, we transmit in
our gametes. That's why the statement, 'Whose life is it anyway?' fits
this. It's very individualistic. I own my own life. I'm master of it. If
I don't want it, I can dispose of it."
-
- Wallis, a prosperous, self-made landlord,
pays child support and visits his daughter. He knows Smith, a receptionist,
can never afford to remedy his complaint. Nor does he expect it.
-
- "This has taken all my wealth, all
my energy to try and deal with, but it's worth it," he says. "For
months, I was seriously despondent. This person I loved and trusted more
than anybody, who was closer to me than anybody in my life, decided, 'This
is what I'm going to do. He'll like it in the end.'
-
- "That she could change not just
my life, but the life of my children, for an undetermined length of time
hurt me so much.
-
- Integrity
-
- "This shouldn't be allowed to happen.
The lawyers said, 'But it has and there's nothing you can do about it.'
So it's easier for me to deal with by spending all my energy on this because
I won't have to give up my integrity or principles."
-
- Dr. Laura Purdy, a philosophy and bio-ethics
professor at U of T's Joint Centre for Bio-ethics, suggests, "The
underlying moral issue here is people shouldn't be made parents against
their will. That's the bedrock upon which reproductive choice for women
rests. I think men have a right to the same choice."
-
- The possibility of becoming pregnant
after intercourse has been in literature for thousands of years. "It's
the stuff of drama and people have taken precautions," says Dr. Fred
Lowy, president of Montreal's Concordia University, an MD and former director
of the Joint Centre for Bio-ethics.
-
- "But there's not a single contraceptive
method that's 100% effective, at all times. There's always a risk of pregnancy.
-
- Big departure
-
- "Nothing new. Now, the possibility
of impregnating a woman is one thing that clearly has to be in the mind
of the man and of the woman. The only thing new about this particular case
is the rather unexpected charge on the man's part that she is responsible,
where he isn't. That's the big departure."
-
- Smith's lawyer, Paul Kennedy, did not
return calls and she couldn't be reached for comment, though news sources
report her saying she forgot to take some Pills and thought Wallis would
be "shocked, but happy" with her unplanned pregnancy.
-
- "The damage has already been done,"
concludes Purdy. "We do have a conflict in their accounts of what
happened and it is really difficult to know who to believe. Women are strongly
socialized to want to have children and pro-natalism is pervasive in society.
Her biological clock was ticking. Gender roles are very powerful here.
-
- "But you shouldn't be sleeping with
people until you've had a discussion about birth control, what will happen
if birth control fails, and attitudes towards abortion and parenting. It's
a moral requirement, but nobody ever has that discussion."
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