Developments in fertility treatment have made it possible for many people to have babies who would not have been able to a generation ago. Now, even dead people. Some argue that if they are entitled to donate their loved one's organs they should be able to use his sperm to bring a baby into the world. What do you think?

http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/03/should-men-be-allowed-to-father-children-after-theyre-dead/?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29

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Should Men Be Allowed to Father Children After They're Dead?
By Bonnie Rochman Friday, June 3, 2011


Fertility-treatment innovations mean that all sorts of people who would not have been able to have a baby a generation ago are now able to bring life into the world. Now, some are arguing the ranks of the newly fertile should include dead people.

In Australia, a woman was granted permission last month to use her dead husband's sperm in an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) attempt to create a child. In Israel, grieving grandparents are petitioning a court to allow them to use their dead son's sperm to conceive a grandchild. And in California, a woman is due in three months with her husband's child — even though her husband died not long before she got pregnant.

The rules of post-humous baby-making are only now being written, but it's a dicey undertaking because individual situations vary so widely. It's not uncommon for soldiers on the brink of a dangerous deployment to freeze sperm so that their wives can have a child should they die. And patients diagnosed with cancer are increasingly turning to fertility preservation to ensure they can become parents. But what happens when the patient dies, as in the California case in which the husband froze sperm prior to cancer treatment and indicated his desire for his wife to bear his child? And how to rule on the Israeli grandparents' quest for a grandchild from their son who was injured last year and died after two weeks in a coma?

“That's much less straightforward,” says Theresa Erickson, the San Diego attorney for the pregnant California woman. “Creating a grandchild is much different than creating a child. Imagine what the child will think: My dad's dead and he never even knew I existed. It's a pretty sticky ethical and moral dilemma.”

Erickson's client had little problem gaining access to her husband's sperm; a California law governing the posthumous use of sperm requires a fetus be in utero within two years of the death, assuming the donor gave consent before he died. Erickson is petitioning for her client's husband's name to be listed on the birth certificate.

In Israel, 27-year-old Ohad Ben-Yaakov wasn't married or in a committed relationship. But his parents, Mali and Dudi Ben-Yaakov, had his sperm extracted and are waiting for a ruling from the country's attorney general to find out whether they can use IVF to impregnate a surrogate with his child. “If we were entitled to donate the organs of our son why are we not entitled to make use of his sperm in order to bring offspring to the world?” they asked in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

Israel is already IVF-crazy; health insurance pays for as many IVF cycles as needed to achieve the birth of up to two babies. In 2003, it codified guidelines surrounding posthumous reproduction that allow a spouse or partner to use a dead man's sperm unless he had specified that was unacceptable.

According to Tablet Magazine:

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“This notion of presumed consent, that we can assume that a man would want to have genetic children after his death, that was really pushing the envelope at the time in comparison with other countries,” says Vardit Ravitsky, an Israeli-born assistant professor in the Bioethics Programs at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine. But the ministry refused to allow a man's mother or father similar access, concluding that parents have no legal standing regarding their children's fertility, “[n]ot in their lifetime, and certainly not when they are dead.”

According to Tablet Magazine:

“This notion of presumed consent, that we can assume that a man would want to have genetic children after his death, that was really pushing the envelope at the time in comparison with other countries,” says Vardit Ravitsky, an Israeli-born assistant professor in the Bioethics Programs at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine. But the ministry refused to allow a man's mother or father similar access, concluding that parents have no legal standing regarding their children's fertility, “[n]ot in their lifetime, and certainly not when they are dead.”

Uhhh, I'm extremely iffy on this one. I'm leaning towards no.

I don't think it's as controversial if the man had sperm on deposit at a sperm bank but swooping in to harvest his seed from his corpse? Maybe by his widow.

If it's something he wanted & planned for ahead of time I don't see a problem. It's just a little weird. Maybe he didn't want kids. There should be some kind of respect for his wishes. It also seems like a violation of the guys rights even though he's dead, it's still his sperm. This just feels all kinds of wrong to me.

No. The whole thing sounds warped, like something to do only because it were possible. Let a living, consenting man donate his seed.

CeCe wrote:

If it's something he wanted & planned for ahead of time I don't see a problem. It's just a little weird. Maybe he didn't want kids. There should be some kind of respect for his wishes. It also seems like a violation of the guys rights even though he's dead, it's still his sperm. This just feels all kinds of wrong to me.

Even tho it is possible on a couple of occasions of my youth that I have spread my genetic material to an offspring (being raised by others) and it really wouldn't matter to me personally after I'm dead, there needs to be guarantees that it is a willfull donation - not just taken by someone else.

No, I don't think you should rob corpses.

That's real weird and I'm gonna say no. I don't even like the idea of dead men who froze their sperm having it inseminated in women after they die. Let living men conceive.

Eh.

Whatever.

A shame that the father and child wouldn't ever know each other, but hey....

alan smithee wrote:

I don't think it's as controversial if the man had sperm on deposit at a sperm bank but swooping in to harvest his seed from his corpse? Maybe by his widow.

CeCe wrote:

If it's something he wanted & planned for ahead of time I don't see a problem. It's just a little weird. Maybe he didn't want kids. There should be some kind of respect for his wishes. It also seems like a violation of the guys rights even though he's dead, it's still his sperm. This just feels all kinds of wrong to me.

ITA with both of you. It just just feels wrong to me, unless the guy has already given permission and donated sperm. That case in Israel sounds ... well... creepy to me. It's like they're trying to replace their son with a grandchild. What are they goign to say to the child and how will that child feel, knowing the circumstance of his or her birth?

I agree with those that said this should be done only if the man has given consent prior. I could see a man who wanted to give his wife a child, or a second child, (so the siblings are not half siblings) after his untimely death.

But ONLY when permission is given.

There is actually another case involving grandparents. Only the guy left behind a wife and it is the wife that is protesting the guy's mother from taking his sperm for a surrogate. I think it is in America. I saw it on a program about a year ago. That is really messed up and most likely a want by this woman stemmed from the grieving process.

Yeah - ITA with you on this, Red. Sounds more like the grandparents want to replace the son who was lost, thinking that a grandchild will do that. It really isn't right and I don't blame the wife for protesting!