The actor, who is seeking parental rights over his son who was conceived via artificial insemination, says of the ruling, 'It's one step closer to having Gus back in my arms.'
- May 16, 2014
AceShowbiz - Jason Patric is happy after a California Appellate Court decided on Wednesday, May 14 that he has parental rights over his son Gus who was conceived via artificial insemination. In a new interview with Access Hollywood following the court ruling, Patric said that it was a "huge victory," not only for him but also others.
"It's one step closer to having Gus back in my arms," the 47-year-old actor said. "This victory, at the appeal level, has great significance, not just for my case, but for many, many other people. It's a published opinion now."
A lower court previously decided that the actor had no rights over Gus, based on California law which states that the mother will have full custody over the children unless they make written agreement prior to the conception. The star of "The Lost Boys", however, argued that he was involved in the child's life.
"The next step is to - I'm allowed to now go into court like I always should have been and give my all my evidence of how I've raised Gus and I'm extremely confident with that," he said. The actor, who has not seen Gus for 64 weeks, explained that he would show proofs that he was a willing parent, such as "videos and pictures from every single aspect of his life. School forms that list me as the father... pediatrician forms, you know, anything that a father would do."
Patric also talked about the custody battle in an interview with "Good Morning America". When asked if he wanted to be a dad, he replied, "I have been a dad and I'm going to continue to be a dad. You can't ever abandon a child."
Patric's lawyer Fred Silberberg additionally explained that Patric was not a sperm donor. "He's not a donor. That's the issue. We've never said Jason's a donor. He didn't donate sperm in that sense," Silberberg stated.
"He went to a clinic with [Danielle Schreiber] in order to have a child together, so we don't want to characterize him as a sperm donor in that sense. But the issue is the law has now been clarified by the court of appeal, and in fact changed, and these two competing statutes that created this problem have now been reconciled. And that could have a ripple effect across the country because so many states have the same statutes in effect," he added.
