Should Dead Men Be Able To Father Children?
The more advanced we become at creating life in all sorts of new-fangled ways, the more people who previously wouldn’t have been able to conceive are able to have children. Now, that may even include dead people.
The rules of post-humous baby making are being written as different precedent-setting scenarios are playing out right now, all across the world.
As Bonnie Rochman reports in Time.com, last month an Australian woman was granted permission to use her dead husband’s sperm to try to create a child via IVF. Mark Edwards was killed in a work accident last year. Although it’s illegal to use sperm without donor consent in New South Wales, where the couple lived, a judge ruled in favor of Jocelyn Edwards.
A couple in Israel wants to be allowed to use their dead son’s sperm to conceive grandchildren.
A California woman is due in three months with her dead husband’s child. He died before she got pregnant.
Rochman describes how hard it is to draft laws governing such things as each situation is so drastically different. For example, soldiers headed to dangerous war zones often freeze sperm so their wives can conceive if they die. Patients with cancer do the same thing, with boys as young as 9-years-old freezing sperm should chemotherapy destroy their fertility. But what about the Israeli grandparents’ quest for a grandchild from their son who was injured last year and died after two weeks in a coma? How should the government rule?
27-year-old Ohad Ben-Yaakov wasn’t in a committed relationship, his parents, Mali and Dudi Ben-Yaakov had his sperm extracted after his death. “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.
“Creating a grandchild is much different than creating a child.” says Theresa Erickson, an attorney interviewed by Rochman. “Imagine what the child will think: My dad’s dead and he never even knew I existed.
Erickson represents the aforementioned California woman who became pregnant using the sperm her husband froze before dying of cancer. 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.
It’s a sticky moral and ethical question that I don’t think one sweeping law can answer. What do you think? Should the ability to father after death be decided on a case-by-case basis? Should only wives who have their husband’s pre-death permission be able to conceive? Or should two loving grandparents prepared to give a child a good home be allowed to harvest their dead son’s sperm?
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Why is the accompanying photo of an agar treated petri dish? This is the preparation used for encouraging the development of bacteria.
It’s not okay to use a living man’s sperm to create a child without his consent. Why should it be okay if he’s dead?
I’m with Angela!
This is a touchy subject because we won’t ever know the opinions of those whose sperm is being used. I can understand why the parents would want that…they want a part of their son. And the woman in who used her husbands sperm, I’m assuming this is something they had discussed because he was dying of cancer so this was something they had both wanted whether he survived cancer or not.
Anyone can buy sperm online. I’m pretty sure no one checks to find out if the sperm donor is still alive or not. I think families should be able to use the sperm to continue their family line if they wish to do so.
Very good comment, Angela! I think permission should be granted before death, but I’m not super-solid about it when it’s a husband. The wife usually would know her husband’s wishes. However, the whole son-grandchild thing is just creepy. I don’t think it’s fair to him or his child.
creepy.
I think science has evolved into some awful thing. No they should not be able to use a dead persons sperm or eggs. Geesh where do we draw the lines?
I am a military spouse and while I can’t see myself going to these extremes no matter what, I can really empathize with the spouses who have made this decision and would not put any obstacles in their path. Where I would consider drawing some lines is the super-creepy grandchild from beyond scenario. It is simply not a grandparent’s place to have any role whatsoever in the procreative activities of their children. If an adult child chooses never to marry or have children, we don’t have crazed grandparents absconding with sperm and eggs to create grandkids like some sort of procreative Dr Frankenstein. If they want to be parents again, then have them harvest their own sperm and eggs and find a surrogate and have a CHILD. Not a grandchild. It is the right of parents to decide to have children (adopted or biological). It is NOT the right of grandparents to have grandchildren.
I just want to add that the australian couple were already considering IVF treatments to concieve a child prior to Mark Edwards death but no paperwork had been signed. The judge in the case ruled that since there was substantial evidence that Mark Edwards would have concented to IVF there was no reason for it not to go ahead after his death.
I think that it is creepy too, if the man never talked about wanting kids or he actually said that he never wanted kids. I guess with technology bringing new circumstances into people’s lives, issues like that should be addressed in some kind of will.
It’s true that you can buy donor sperm even if the donor has since deceased. Or that you can use sperm from a deceased family member who knowingly consented and banked his sperm while alive with the intent of creating a child. To me the key difference is that they were alive when they consented. Procreating should be a consensual act. Period. I heard of another couple who’s daughter is in a coma who wanted to impregnate her by artificial insemination to produce a grandchild. That’s even more sick.
I don’t see how this is any different than IVF, artificial semination, embryo adoption, or donor eggs. It’s all artificial to some extent and without science, none of it would be possible. We’re not talking extracting semen under the dark of night from dying men to populate the world with. In each example in the article the participants are clear as are the goals. Yeah, grandparents creating grandchildren is odd, but is it wrong? I don’t think so. Unless you’re willing to draw a line and say that only children conceived the old fashioned way are acceptable, you have to remain open to new ways of conception.
Dead men fathering children is creepy.
But living women conceiving children with sperm that has outlived its donor is not creepy. Good thing that’s what’s actually happening here.
I think they would be better fathers than many of those who are living. The more we can get done in the world without men screwing it up the better!
I think, if the father is of legal age, and makes the descision to freeze his sperm, then he is consenting to the sperm being used for IVF. He has basically frozen his sperm in the thought that “hey, if something happens to me (death/infertility), then you, my wife, can still have our baby”. And in this case, I think it’s perfectly fine.
However, in the case of the grandparents, that is just WRONG. The son did NOT consent (as it was taken after death), and he was not already in a committed relationship where children had been discussed. Having grandchildren is not a right or an entitlement – it is a priviledge. If your children decide not to have children themselves, that’s their descision. You can’t force them.