May 22, 2012
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Post Death Babies…
One of the more gruesome things that has come of “test tube baby” tech is the advent of posthumous fertilization…ie, taking sperm from dead men to make babies with. I know…very sad…but it’s led to some awful legal battles, and frankly it creeps me out.
The Supreme Court just made posthumous birth less profitable. Babies conceived AFTER the father’s death are not legally recognized as “heirs”.
If you still absolutely MUST make babies with someone who is deceased, you do so at your own cost…and risk.
I wonder if that applies to couples who froze embryos?
Will the fertilization count, rather than implantation?
And yes…we DO need laws…because we clearly have no idea how to act without them!
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Comments (10)
Post death, it’s disturbing and feels wrong. However I can understand how in the throes of grief wanting a child with the man lost can be logical and even comforting to the widow. I was equally torn in grief, half wanted another child, the other half was repulsed. That side won.
I recently saw a tv show (scripted) in which a woman’s in vitro fertilized eggs had been implanted in another woman without her consent. She found out about it several years later and wanted the other child! The people with the child didn’t know about the screw up either. Can you say custody battle? As it turned out, the fertility doctor was doing on purpose and in secret so that even the women whose eggs didn’t feritlize could have kids! Nice. Only fiction, but I can see it happening.
This is what happens when human life becomes a commodity.
Wow. This kind of left me speechless. I read about a husband and wife who wanted to have babies later and they froze his sperm. He died young and she used his sperm to get pregnant with their baby. I understand that using sperm from a dead husband, but holy moly people are getting weirder and weirder every day.
I think the case that led to this decision had to do with frozen sperm. I agree that we do need laws — and it would be wise to explore the laws before the insemination ~ ~ ~
@lucylwrites - Human life became a commodity the day war became profitable. It took a loooooooong time to get from there to in vitro fertilization.
@NeverSubmit - This wasn’t about in vitro…this was about harvesting sperm and using it shortly after a man’s death to make babies…which I still find distasteful at a minimum.
I understand grief…I can even grasp regret…but unless the man WANTED to be a father it strikes me as a form of grave robbing. I’ve known couples who never resolved the “child” issue…one I think needs to be determined before getting married. I know of a few cases where the women decided that the man would “change his mind” once he had a baby…and the results were horrific.
If we can fool ourselves like that, with a living, breathing man saying NO…what will we do when he no longer can protest?
@galadrial - I can kind of grasp the ick factor here, and the court ruling makes sense too (the human family is a social and legal entity but certainly is not always a genetic one)but suppose the couple had plans together and those plans were cut short by disaster or other inevitability. Why shouldn’t IVF allow a back door around it?
Frankly, I couldn’t imagine a man saving his sperm except to maybe have kids one day, just not now, although I’m sure this is a failure of my own imagination. Then, I suppose, there’s the Mason Verger story (from the book Hannibal, not the movie), where his sister wants an heir. So she steals her brother’s sperm then murders him. Ethically questionable to say the least. But though stranger things may have happened in real life, I still don’t see the big deal. The system isn’t any more broken because fertility now extends beyond the grave.
@NeverSubmit - The problem seems to be truth being stranger than fiction. Male sperm is viable up to 24 hours post mortem…after death. So it’s possible to extract it ( serious ick factor there) and use it to make a baby.
I know it sounds far fetched—but when Pamela Anderson had a boob tune up, her old implants turned up on Ebay in days…and were sold without her consent. It’s not that odd to think if Bill Gates kicked the bucket, someone might not make a play for his nads…and a future heir. I do know that reproductive tech has far outpaced our legal system.
Baby M is about 23 year old today…and my state has not passed a SINGLE law since that battle, to clarify who actually has rights to an IVF baby…
Wow… we have kids dying in all parts of the world and you’re so desperate for a kid you’re going to take a dead mans sperm. Can you imagine. “Mrs Anderson you husband died in a car accident”. “Is his penis still in tact?” “yes why?” “GET HIS SPERM!” I mean really, they had to make a law about this… crazy.